Ripples on the Pond
by emblasochist
Summary: A new take on the Burn Up Blade Arc. Tsuruko defeats Motoko in the Hinata Springs, and is forced to marry Keitaro. The duo over time develop a loving marriage, assuming they can work through the problems they are thrown.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I know nothink! I have no rights to the characters and plot of Love Hina, although I do have rights to the diverged path this story takes. All plot and characters are the properties of their respective owners.

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Sometimes even the smallest pebbles when tossed into a tranquil pond make large ripples. Those situations are few and far between, and are perfectly engineered for just such a reaction, whereas most of the time, the size of the rock determines the size of the

Splash!

Motoko drained yet another bucket of the hot water of the springs over her head to rinse her pristinely midnight hair of the hibiscus and lavender shampoo she had been trying. Keitaro still hadn't gotten used to the sound of it after six times in the space of time both he and she were in the springs. It didn't help that he had no precursors to watch or hear as she spoke while doing so, and he was forced to wear a thick eye-covering.

"I still don't understand why you make me wear this thing. It bugs me hearing that bucket tossed so violently over your head and not know when it's going to happen."

"You know that you have to wear it because this is not for real. We are just doing this until my sister is satisfied we are to be married. You don't have to see me naked. You really believe that I would let you sit in the springs here with me without you blindfolded when you've peeped on all of us more than once?"

"Hey! I've never meant to do it! You know I'm clumsy. I just have terrible luck, for whatever reason. But, do you really think we can fool her? I mean, how long would she stay before she's satisfied? What else might she want to see?" He made toward taking the crude vision dampener, but Motoko smacked his hands away from his face and huffed rather irksomely.

"I hope we can be through with this charade very shortly. Sister will likely stay the night, and be satisfied tomorrow if you can just follow my lead, and we can be back to the normal functioning of the dormitories the following day." Her tone signaled to Keitaro she was more agitated than him just being around, but not quite as furious as if he made some gargantuan mistake of grabbing one of his tenants.

"Are you so sure, Imouto-chan?" Tsuruko's voice came seemingly from everywhere, and she came into the baths tacitly, and she was clearly volcanic. Clothed in her gi with her breasts bound like her younger sister always had done, and wearing a loincloth, the puce of her face greatly contrasted with the alabaster of her waist and hands. "You thought you could delude me into thinking this was all real. Tell me, sister, why did you lie to me? I ought to know before I punish you." Unbeknownst to Keitaro who was still blindfolded, Tsuruko had unsheathed her katana, and was in an attack stance.

"I lied because I do not want to return home yet. This is home for me now. These people are my friends. But if you seek a fight, sister, a fight you shall have."

At this, Keitaro removed his blindfold, consequences be damned. Something serious was going down, if Motoko was offering to fight someone and it wasn't him.

"Wait," he pleaded between the two sword mistresses, "there's no need to fight! Motoko doesn't want to fight. She looks up to you. I think she could beat you, but she doesn't. She thinks she's not ready for the responsibility for the school. If anyone gets punished, make it me, because she asked me to go along with this whole thing. Besides that, Motoko hasn't graduated from high school, let alone college. Shouldn't it be up to her to take over the school this early in her life?"

Tsuruko was not quite prepared for such a heartfelt plea, but she was not going to buy what he was selling. It did at least open up a chance for verifying it was the truth, however.

"Are you sure you want to lie to me again, kanrinrin-san? I already must punish you for one lie; make sure you do not get punished for a second." Turning her head to face her sister more directly, she demanded "Is this so, Imouto-chan? Do you truly wish to continue your schooling further before returning home? You are not ready for your duties? Show me."

The fight was over before it started. Motoko unsheathed her katana and ran at her sister in preparation for an honest sword duel, but her sister parried her first strike and followed the parry with a counter that shattered Motoko's katana.

"He was right. You are not ready for our clan's leadership roles. Your punishment is to be condemned to the role of a wife until you can prove your worth to your clan. And for you, kanrinrin-san, your job is to prepare her to be wedded to the groom of her choice, on the condition that he is acceptable to our clan."

Keitaro was stunned. He had no idea that a fight Motoko was in could be so short unless it was with him. Something told him that Motoko's katana being in several pieces was quite a bad sign too. But there is no way that Motoko would be able to live the life of a wife before the life of a swordswoman. He had to make a plea for another option. As Tsuruko left the springs area and entered the changing area again, he looked over at Motoko and hoped she'd be all right. She was still a strong girl in her own right.

When Keitaro met Tsuruko back in the living room of the dorm, he dropped to his knees in front of her, and begged with his head on the floor for a different solution to address the lie they told her. "Making Motoko become a bride will kill her. And on top of that, she can't even be a swordswoman until she does. That's going to be the end of her. There has to be another choice. Please, what else can be done, Aoyama-san?"

"The punishment for telling lies in my clan is to make the one that lied make it true, or die trying. Do you have any other ways to make this up, if it is our clan's policy to punish our own this way?"

"You mean, like make ME marry Motoko?"

"You seem much wiser than my sister gives you credit. Yes. That is precisely what I mean. If you care so much for her well-being and what she wants from life, you have what you need to be a good husband for her. Is that what you would prefer, kanrinrin-san?"

"You don't want me to be her husband! She hates me! And I'm really clumsy, and I failed to get into Tokyo U three times before I got in. She wouldn't be happy with me," 'or any other guy' he kept to himself.

"Are you sure that you cannot make her happy, or that you just would rather be with someone else?"

"Yeah, I'm in love with Na-err… I'm not sure."

"Think very carefully, kanrinrin-san about how you respond."

"Well, Motoko's a great person, but everything I do I screw up, just about, and if Motoko were to get married to anyone, I would hope she had the choice in who she gets married to. I care about her a lot, but I still gave my heart to someone else. And I think that Motoko's a good enough person that she should be married to someone that loves over everyone else."

"Is it not true, Keitaro-san that the one you chose has not responded to your confessions?"

"Well, yes… But, Naru's got a lot on her mind now that she's a Tokyo U student. She's just busy, I think."

"And you are certain that Motoko does not care for you the same as Narusegawa-san does? I know that she has been quite disdainful toward most men, but you have managed to get some level of respect from her if she chose to say that she was to be married to you."

"I never thought about that. But, it's still not fair to her to be married to someone that doesn't love her over everyone else."

"You may come to find that, with time, nothing stays the same. Do not assume that you would never love her the way you feel you should in time. However, you are also not to believe that things cannot get worse with time too. Keep this in mind as you consider whether you would marry my sister. Also know that she does admire your determination, and she may lead you to believe she thinks poorly of you as a peeping tom, but she has spoken with me before and she understands that often, you are caught in bad situations."

Keitaro was silent for some time as he considered the possibility of being married to Motoko. He had realized that his relationship with Naru would come to a screeching halt, even before it really ever began, but he could not argue that he had gotten as far with Naru as he had with Motoko. And, if Tsuruko was any indication of what Motoko would look like a few years' time, it would be safe to say that he would not have to worry about her beauty fading. But, then again, he worried that Motoko would ultimately be unhappy with him. However, Motoko might be able to replace her sword and regain her status in her family at any point in her future, instead of having to find a suitable husband in order to do so. He was giving himself a headache trying to decide what was in both his and Motoko's interests and gave up trying to choose when she would have to be happy with the decision too.

"I'm going to leave that decision up to Motoko. I don't think that I could make a decision she'd be happy with."

"You have far too little faith in yourself, kanrinrin-san. You were given the responsibility of managing this dormitory from your grandmother, were you not? Someone believes you are capable of making good decisions. But, if this is what you wish, so be it. We shall give the choice to Motoko-han and let her decide."

The pair waited a few moments waiting for Motoko to come through the patio door, and their wait was brief. The young swordswoman shambled through the glass door wearing a white towel and the stain of new tears on her face, carrying her broken blade and the clothes from her former life.

She made no attempt to stop in the living room for chatter but rather wished to crawl to her room and die with the small amount of pride she still owned. Keitaro unknowingly stopped her from doing just that as he looked into her face and saw none of the fire that once burned in her eyes. The emotional pain he felt was so terrible he would have preferred to be tossed around the dorm than see Motoko so out of her element and full of sadness.

Keitaro was holding onto the hope that he could prevent the world from changing, only to realize it had changed and left him behind. He immediately got up and embraced Motoko and dragged her with him to the love seat he had been sitting on, hugging her close as she cried the lament of the loss of her preferred life.

Motoko did not want to be hugged. She didn't want to be comforted. She didn't want to be shushed. She didn't want to be told everything will be okay. The truth is she wanted to make it to her bedroom and die with the tiny amount of dignity she felt she still had. She wanted to shove off Keitaro with everything she had. She even tried. But everything she had was far too little to push him away. He registered that she was pushing him, but she was much stronger than that. She could have easily thrown him across the room if she even remotely tried. Her mind full of fog she felt only a terrible pain of loss, but being embraced had spread some warmth across her frigid frame, and dissipated enough of the haze to attribute Keitaro's face to the fire fighting back the storm. "I'm here for good, Motoko. I'm not going to give up on you. You've got me here for good."

All she heard was "You've got me here for good," but in that moment of complete loss and utter weakness, someone had stepped forward for her; thrown a life preserver to her face-to-face before she drowned in her ocean of woe. And despite all her mistrust in him, it was Keitaro who came to her salvation. Of all people, her lifeboat was the supposedly spineless, cowardly peeping tom; he was there for her in spite of her mistreatment of him just like he was there for anyone else in need. This realization burned a hole through her heart of shame, but at that moment, she abandoned her immediate cares and grabbed on tightly to a bewildered Keitaro, hoping he would not betray the trust she was giving him. In reaction, he pulled her closer, and whispered in her ear soothing words as her tears made every attempt possible to drown her. By then, Motoko grabbed onto Keitaro and held onto him as her port in the current storm of her life. After a few minutes of terrible bawling, she started to ease her crying, but it was a good ten minutes before she was silent again.

Tsuruko took the whole scene in, sizing up Keitaro's ability to help her sister in this life-changing event. She noticed the subtleties of Keitaro pulling her closer as Motoko's sobs got more ragged and awfully sounding, and gently rubbed her back with one hand, the other keeping her head close to his own. She watched as Keitaro mussed with her sister's still damp hair in a rather paternal manner. And she noted that despite her sister's vulnerability in being clothed in just a towel, he was quite the proper gentleman, in spite of everything Motoko wrote home to her about him.

'He might make a very suitable husband for Motoko-han, if only he can find an outlet for her fits of rage,' the Aoyama clan representative considered.

It was the towel that was starting to soak the knees of his pants that made him realize that the sofa was not a great place for him to be holding Motoko in her current state. Making great efforts not to bring up the issue in a negative light, he considered the best way to address the subject before suggesting that he, she and Tsuruko go to Motoko's room to give her a change of clothes and let her change her mind on the situation she was in. He opened his mouth, trying to find the words in his throat, only to find them missing, and closed it again to try again twice more before Tsuruko took notice of it.

"Do you have something you wish to say, kanrinrin-san?" she asked calmly, clearly amused that he was having such a hard time finding his tongue.

"I think… uh… maybe it would be better if we, um… if we continued this conversation in Motoko's room?" he suggested clearly not really wanting to do that either. "I mean, Motoko is um… well, she's um… and it would look bad, and um… the couch is starting to get soaked. But, um… then again, I can wait here until she gets um…"he struggled. "Dressed?" Tsuruko offered.

"Yes. That. It would be improper for me to be in her room as she changes."

"I think my sister has decided that it is acceptable to have you there. Please, kanrinrin-san. Lead the way."

Keitaro wasn't sure, but he thought for the briefest of seconds, Tsuruko was smirking. For some reason unknown to Keitaro, Tsuruko had it in for him, and she seemed to want to make every effort to make his life hell. So, as Tsuruko stood up to follow him, he tried to stand only to realize that Motoko was for once, feeling safe in the arms of another. She refused to let Keitaro go, and was still sobbing silently after Keitaro tried unsuccessfully to have her walk herself up the two flights of creaky stairs to her floor and past both Suu and Naru's rooms before arriving at her door. Ultimately, he gave up trying to have Motoko do things for herself for the time being, and carried her in a manner that westerners would call bridal style, a fact that Keitaro would find mildly amusing had he not been the one in the predicament.

'Wow, I never noticed, but for such a tall, strong girl, she's quite light. You'd think that she'd snap in half from a lot of the stuff you see her do if only she let you pick her up.' The train of thought currently occupying Keitaro's higher brain functions began wondering what he had done that had won him enough favor with the mess of a girl he held in his arms. Right from square one, Keitaro was quite badly viewed in the Hinata Sou, in not only Motoko's eyes, but pretty much everyone in the dorm. It probably stemmed from staying as long as he had in the onsen with Naru, and how he failed to clear up the misunderstanding that he was not actually a Todaisei at the time he arrived.

Many events had occurred that suggested to Keitaro that Motoko wanted nothing to do with him, and if at all possible, she'd want him on a completely separate continent for the rest of her life. Often times, it would be something like him falling over onto something, which almost always ended up with him groping one of his tenants, or inadvertently getting an eyeful while a girl was changing, or otherwise indecent for his eyes. And now here she was in his arms, holding on to something he either was or had, but he couldn't possibly have less of a clue what it was she was suddenly finding in him.

With no more desire to draw out this whole issue much more, Keitaro nudged his foot into the small opening to Motoko's room, and firmly slid the door along the track enough to easily walk through with Motoko in his arms and cautiously stepped past the threshold and stopped abruptly. Every time he walked past, or the few times he walked into, Motoko's room had ended up with terrible results. Much like any landlord faced, nobody looked forward to rent collection. Naru's parents made it slightly easier by paying the sum to him in the form of a check from before he started to manage the place, but he still had to deal with Mitsune trying to filch her way out of the rent, Suu paying in a non-liquid foreign currency that seemed very much like a game piece to a prominent American export game, and Motoko making it very clear that she felt that he was doing an inadequate job as manager and would not pay, should that have been legal. Somehow, Keitaro always felt the worst about rent collection day after seeing Motoko, because he always felt quite belittled by her comments, and on two occasions, he managed to find Motoko in different stages of undress when he went room to room.

"Are you ready to stand," he asked his charge, hoping he could set her on her feet so he could leave the room while she changed into something more appropriate. She however did not respond, having fallen asleep in his arms after crying all the tears she had and being carried more closely to the warmth he radiated. Not quite angry, but clearly not thrilled either, he slowly dropped to his knees and set her gently on the floor near her still unrolled bedding and tried to get himself off the floor. With what could only be called a pained expression, he turned his head toward Tsuruko who still stood in the doorway and asked her whether he had to be there.

"You don't really expect me to be in the room while Motoko dresses, do you?" he petitioned the elder woman, clearly dreading the possibility of having to do so.

"Why would you not need to be here, kanrinrin-san? You are not concerned for Motoko-han's modesty still, are you? You must address this if you are going to marry my sister, you know?"

Keitaro's head sunk. He knew it was not going to be that easy. And somehow, he knew he would not be able to sneak out of the room. No. He'd have to be present. Someone certainly was trying to shove his ship into the vast ocean and hope that the upcoming storm might sink it.

Keitaro hoped that he would not have to dress Motoko himself, but somehow he knew that he couldn't have put himself in such a situation. After a few second's deliberation, he stood up and looked around the room for a dresser or something like it. Seeing nothing but closets, he opened the nearest one and found that Motoko found room to place a five foot dresser in her closet, and kept several training uniforms hanging side by side in her closet. Taking another shot in the dark, he opened the first drawer expecting socks, underwear or bras, and was only mildly surprised to see all three in the top of the four drawers, separated by hand-made partitions. What surprised him about that was that he almost expected to not see any bras at all in her drawers, having only ever seen her wearing her long cotton bindings when he accidentally walked by her room as she changed from her school uniform to her training uniform. Taking one bra and a pair of panties from her dresser and placing them on the top as he grabbed a pair of socks then closed the first drawer; he wondered what other things he might find in Motoko's dresser. Somehow he doubted any of the other drawers to be filled with any clothes. He looked over to the kendogi hanging up and grabbed one, then grabbed finally a hakama and closed the closet with his findings.

He knew that this was the worst idea he had ever entertained in his brain, but placed the gi and hakama on the futon, holding the bra and panties in his hand. Somewhere, he wondered how he got suckered into dressing a fully capable and beautiful woman. Yet, his libido shoved that idea from his head as soon as it recognized the thought. Sighing once again to keep himself from losing his head, he dropped to his knees, lifting one leg with his right hand, pulling the soft cotton undergarment onto her body with the left. After getting them on one leg, he pulled them up her other leg, following the same procedure. He continued with the waistband of the garment, pulling it up her toned legs and hoped he could lift her into his arms to pull them up the rest of the way up to her heart-shaped derriere as he put on her bra. Keitaro shimmied himself over a few steps to put her arms through the shoulder straps after lifting her dreaming form to his chest, putting his chin over her left collarbone to see what he needed to do to close the front-hooked clasp. He was doing so well for himself being as good a gentleman as he could be in the situation, but her pubic patch made Keitaro somewhat distracted. For the time being, he let the bra go, pulling the white cotton underwear up Motoko's bottom, doing the best job of obscuring the pleasant view of her landing strip from his eyes, but not removing it from his view. Shaking his head of all the things he wished he could do with the gorgeous woman in front of him, he focused himself on the bra at hand. It took four tries to get the first of the three clasps, but after the initial slip-ups, he swiftly closed the rest on the first tries. Now that she had some sense of decency about her, he could feel more at ease as he finished clothing her.

The gi was the logical choice as he already had her somewhat upright, being as delicate as he could while he pushed her arm through the white cotton sleeves and tied the strip of cloth that held the kimono-resembling garment together, taking four tries to tie the knot without grabbing the girl's chest and still making the knot not slip. Knowing he'd require help affixing the hakama, he solicited the assistance of Tsuruko who had amusedly watched Keitaro's efforts at clothing her sister. It was at this time that Keitaro hooked his arms under Motoko's and lifted her from her bed, allowing her sister to pull the garment up her legs and tying it around her lithe waist. Without ceremony, Keitaro lowered Motoko back onto her rump before laying her upper body gently on the bedding, hoping to flee from the scene before anyone noticed he was in her room.

"Kanrinrin-san, I believe you have not completed the task you set out to do."

"Huh," Keitaro asked, beleaguered.

"You have forgotten Motoko-han's socks and hair bow."

"Oh," the young man replied, uncommitted in the belief that they needed to be done.

"That is, unless you want my dear sister to wake with cold feet in the night. And mind you, she would be rather upset that you failed to tie back her hair in the morning, considering all the work that goes into maintaining it so meticulously."

Keitaro was quite sure that the last part was completely incorrect. He was convinced that Motoko would not want to have been touched by him ever. He wanted to tell the older woman that she was dead wrong, but that seemed like it would leave him just plain dead. He was worried also that, should he keep touching Motoko, he would prove her wrong regardless by waking her up, and that was extremely likely to result in the same outcome. Either way he was damned. But, he had the hope that he wouldn't wake the young girl from her sleep and the knowledge that Tsuruko would not let him leave with the chore unfinished. There really wasn't a decision, but going the way Tsuruko evidently wanted him to go felt better than fighting his way from her, and likely Motoko as well afterward.

Resigned, he dropped back to his knees heavily and shimmied himself to the bedding his tenant occupied, taking every effort he had not to wake her as he tied the simple yet elegant red ribbon through the lavender scented raven locks on Motoko's head and gently placed it back upon her modest cherry blossom printed pillow. After noticing she hadn't woken yet, he knee-walked to her delicate feet and lifted her left leg, noticing how silky her alabaster skin felt to the touch. Interestingly, her legs did not feel shaved, or hairy, something she did not have in common with the resident fox from hearing her pout about the pain it was to shave them. Trying to push the thought out of his head, he swiftly pulled the ankle socks onto the feminine feet before him and scurried out of the room, only after pulling a blanket over her peaceful looking body.

"So, where are you headed, Keitaro-san?"

"Oh, well…. I was thinking of getting a soak in my tub and getting to bed. Was there anything you needed, Tsuruko-san?"

"You do not use the onsen?"

"Oh… No, I try to avoid the onsen as much as I can. I tend to have accidents when I'm around the onsen. I only go in to clean it, once a week when nobody's in it so they don't think I'm peeping."

"Well, if it is not too much hassle, I would not only enjoy the company in the springs, I would appreciate the help washing my back."

Continuing on his trend of being incapable of telling some no, Keitaro found himself in the onsen with another nude Aoyama woman and did not feel fortune smiling upon him. A tingling sense of which he couldn't explain told him he really ought not stay in the springs, but something more primal told him fleeing from Tsuruko would be a most swift death. With a hearty sigh, he dropped himself into the not quite sauna hot water and waited until the she needed him.

"This is quite a nice evening for a hot springs bath, is it not?" Tsuruko was aware of Keitaro's concern, but she wanted to discuss something of great importance and having him run off would make it unpleasant to address. "You said that you wash the springs once a week? By the looks of it, you put in quite a lot of work maintaining them. It still looks immaculate." She took a sweeping glance around the springs and noticed the boulder upon which Motoko had once used a Shinmei Ryuu Secret Technique. She noted how perfectly sliced the rock faces were halved and decided that she had found her ice breaker.

"A perfectly performed Rock Splitting Sword technique is quite difficult to accomplish. It takes a great level of focus to succeed. Do you know how she was capable of it?"

"I would prefer not to discuss that."

"Oh. And why would you wish not to talk about such a topic, Keitaro-san?"

"It's in the interest of self-preservation that I'd like to avoid that topic."

"So, you have something else to discuss then?"

"Uh…"

"Motoko-han did that to the rock before us, yes? Tell me why."

"Well, what happened was Motoko challenged me to a duel out here in the patio area not long after I arrived here as manager because I had accidently seen a lot of things I did not mean to see. Suffice it to say that she was willing to duel me and wager my right to stay on as manager if she lost. And I was just fortunate enough to get out of the way of the attack when it sliced through the rock. The duel itself lasted very short."

"And you beat my sister? Incredible!"

"Uh… Not exactly. I guess you could call it a tie."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I tripped and my bokken smacked her on the top of the head as she hit me in the chest with hers. We both ended knocked unconscious. She ended up with a nasty cold because of it."

"I see. My sister is quite the violent tenant, yes?"

"I wouldn't say that. She's just passionate about the things important to her."

"You notice that, do you? That is what I want to really discuss with you. You see Keitaro-san my sister is quite passionate in her distrust for men, turtles and other people in general. She thinks love is a weakness. She wants to be the quintessential samurai warrior, but she fails to understand that the best samurai have strength and courage, but weakness and fear. After all, he who fears nothing has never gained his heart's desire."

"So… What does that mean to me?"

Tsuruko wasn't sure how to phrase it for a moment, but managed to reply after crafting a method of roping Keitaro into a marriage he agreed to with her sister.

"Motoko thinks her only hope at her heart's desire shattered with her sword. Though she has not, this way of life for her will likely come to an end. Her only way through life now would be to have help in finding a way back on track, or having someone point out to her another of her heart's desires."

"What are Motoko's heart's desires?"

"Admiration, the love of another, my being proud of her. It is a shame she doesn't know that she already has these things. If only she knew how powerful she truly is. The truth is Motoko is singlehandedly more naturally skilled than me, but my love for her pushed me to show her that gifts from birth are not enough to overcome any obstacle alone."

"If Motoko already has her heart's desires, what could I do?"

"Your task would be to help her realize some other deep desire so she has a reason to live."

"I think I can do that."

"So, you'll marry my sister?"

"I promised her I would do anything I need to do to make her happy. If that's what I have to do, I'll gladly do so."

"It will make her happy in the long term, whether or not she is pleased about it immediately. Is that sufficient?"

"I guess that's what really is important."

"So, that is a yes? You will marry my sister?"

"Yes, I'll marry Motoko."

"So, let us discuss you. What do you want from life? What do you want to do? Why do you want to marry Motoko?"

"Hmm… I really don't know what I want from life yet. I suppose I'd like to have some kids running around and to stick around with my wife to see them have their own kids. As for what I want to do, I've been thinking about the Todai Law program." He left the final question unanswered as he wasn't quite sure Tsuruko was really asking him.

"You are quite a simple man to please, are you not, Keitaro-san?"

"I guess I am."

"Do you have any idea what you would like to do in the legal field?"

"No. Not really. I have to get into the program still, but I just started looking at the options that are out there for a legal graduate."

"I see. But, why would you want to marry my sister?"

"Um… Well, I want to make her happy and you think that marrying her will make her happy. She's a good person too, and very pretty, but I really just want her to be happy."

"That is a noble reason; however, Motoko will be happy only because she chooses to be so. You do not seem the type to force her will in being happy, whether she genuinely feels as such. The fact that you show so much consideration for her wellbeing would please her. But do not think that you can make another person happy with you. You can only do your best to learn what Motoko enjoys and let her be herself. Are you prepared for that?"

"I think so. Yes, I am."

"That is excellent. I should think that you will be a great husband for my sister."

"Er… Was this an omiai?"

"What do you think, Keitaro-san? Was this an omiai?"

"Not a traditional one, I guess."

In the warm evening summer air, Aoyama and Urashima sat in the hot springs making idle chatter about life and the great fortune to have such hot springs at the inn. Having come up with the idea for each of the two to wash the other's back, Tsuruko sat on the wooden stool Motoko set out for Keitaro in her bath only a few hours prior, with Keitaro taking up another stool behind her back. Tsuruko made a comment about how great the view was out in the springs, maybe on purpose, or maybe on accident, at the same time as she let the towel around her torso fall toward the hard rocky ground. Keitaro was sure that she was talking about the sky, but couldn't help but think that the view in front of his eyes was far from unpleasant either, having been teased and nearly goaded into enjoying Motoko's nude form not long before. Motoko has a nice small heart-shaped behind he had noticed from more than a few accidents, but Tsuruko made it a point to make hers large enough to be appreciated in private. It was a fact that mesmerized Keitaro long enough that Tsuruko had to look over her shoulder to see what was holding Keitaro up from washing her back. Admittedly, he didn't have either a bath sponge or brush, but he was too dumbstruck to have noticed the one that the elder Aoyama provided him a moment later. While Motoko had a very traditional look about her, from her snowy skin to her very long sable hair to her dainty butt, Tsuruko had a more modern appeal. Her curves were conspicous, and her hair and skin had a fair amount of color to them. And while Motoko's beauty had little need of make-up, Tsuruko made use of the most barest traces of it to make a more dramatic impression. Once he realized he was supposed to be washing instead of staring, he took the sponge offered him and a little too enthusiastically, started washing her back, making a point to avoid her sides or butt. After a few moments of silence, Keitaro hoped she would continue talking, but it seemed she had run out of nothings to say.

"Done." Keitaro claimed after a few minutes of slient scrubbing, only to be contended with.

"Keitaro-san, you have missed a lot of spots."

"I have?"

When Tsuruko took his hand to the sides of her body and down toward her luscious behind, he had to object.

"Hey, you don't need me to do those areas for you."

"You are correct. I do not need you for that, but you have to have the confidence to do so for my sister, and I believe you to be enough of a gentleman not to do something innapropriate."

"If Motoko asks me to, then I'll do it, but you're a married woman. It's not right for me to do that."

"You never cease to amaze me, Keitaro-san. You are more of a gentleman than my sister could ever imagine. If you are certain that you would do so should Motoko asks, then it is your turn."

The two changed positions after Tsuruko resecured her towel about her torso and Keitaro asked her a serious question.

"Tsuruko-san, what will happen next?"

"Well, we need to make preparations for the wedding. I suppose the best place for it would be the Urashima shrine. I was told that it is on the property, correct?"

"Well, yes, it is, but, I meant... What will happen after the wedding?"

"Typically there is a recpetion of the bride and groom with a larger party of guests, friends and family, and at the end, the bride and groom do their best to enjoy consumating the marriage. I suppose you mean something other than that, though."

"Well, uh... Yeah... I was thinking, what will happen more long-term than that?"

"That, Keitaro-san, I cannot say. At that point, it will be up to you and your wife. The best I could do is wish you luck."

"I guess I was kind of looking for pointers on how to make it work out, you know?"

"You need to be yourself. I will not tell you not to change, because you will change, but, be yourself through it all. Motoko has grown to trust you and appreciate you because you think of others before yourself. But, you have to be happy with the decisions you make too. No matter how much you give your partner, a marriage will not last if you are not happy with the situation you find youself in. Give all that you need to, but do not put yourself out too much to sustain it. And do not worry. In time, Motoko will start to give back to you in time."

"I see."

"Are you sure you want to marry my sister, Keitaro-san? You seem unsure of your decision, and it is not too late to change your mind."

"I think I can be happy married to Motoko. And it's not just because she'll be happy, I think."

"So, you are certain?"

"Yes, my mind's made up. But... Uh... We don't have to rush to consumate the marriage, right?"

"Is that the doubt that I had heard in your voice?"

"I guess. I don't think Motoko will let me live past the ceremony if she finds out we have to make it official that day."

"I see what you mean. Ideally, you would, but I think exceptions can be made from the clan's elders in this case."

"Oh. Good."

"But, you will eventually have to produce a child, Keitaro-san, if you expect to have Motoko reinstated into the Shinmei-Ryuu."

"..."

"Trust me, she will open up to you. You may just need to give her a reason to do so."

The conversation trailed off at that point and the two who had both long since been done getting clean soaked in the hot water of the springs and let their muscles relax. Eventually, Tsuruko left the manager with his thoughts and bid him a good night and found herself back to her sister's bedroom for the night. Keitaro sat in the springs for a few minutes longer before he packed up his thoughts and went to his own room for the night. He found himself unable to sleep for quite some time trying to find confidence in what Tsuruko had told him and eventually fell asleep, dreaming of the ups and downs of a marriage with Motoko.

In the warm evening summer air, Aoyama and Urashima sat in the hot springs making idle chatter about life and the great fortune to have such hot springs at the inn. Having come up with the idea for each of the two to wash the other's back, Tsuruko sat on the wooden stool Motoko set out for Keitaro in her bath only a few hours prior, with Keitaro taking up another stool behind her back. Tsuruko made a comment about how great the view was out in the springs, maybe on purpose, or maybe on accident, at the same time as she let the towel around her torso fall toward the hard rocky ground. Keitaro was sure that she was talking about the sky, but couldn't help but think that the view in front of his eyes was far from unpleasant either, having been teased and nearly goaded into enjoying Motoko's nude form not long before. Motoko has a nice small heart-shaped behind he had noticed from more than a few accidents, but Tsuruko made it a point to make hers large enough to be appreciated in private. It was a fact that mesmerized Keitaro long enough that Tsuruko had to look over her shoulder to see what was holding Keitaro up from washing her back. Admittedly, he didn't have either a bath sponge or brush, but he was too dumbstruck to have noticed the one that the elder Aoyama provided him a moment later. While Motoko had a very traditional look about her, from her snowy skin to her very long sable hair to her dainty butt, Tsuruko had a more modern appeal. Her curves were conspicous, and her hair and skin had a fair amount of color to them. And while Motoko's beauty had little need of make-up, Tsuruko made use of the most barest traces of it to make a more dramatic impression. Once he realized he was supposed to be washing instead of staring, he took the sponge offered him and a little too enthusiastically, started washing her back, making a point to avoid her sides or butt. After a few moments of silence, Keitaro hoped she would continue talking, but it seemed she had run out of nothings to say.

"Done." Keitaro claimed after a few minutes of slient scrubbing, only to be contended with.

"Keitaro-san, you have missed a lot of spots."

"I have?"

When Tsuruko took his hand to the sides of her body and down toward her luscious behind, he had to object.

"Hey, you don't need me to do those areas for you."

"You are correct. I do not need you for that, but you have to have the confidence to do so for my sister, and I believe you to be enough of a gentleman not to do something innapropriate."

"If Motoko asks me to, then I'll do it, but you're a married woman. It's not right for me to do that."

"You never cease to amaze me, Keitaro-san. You are more of a gentleman than my sister could ever imagine. If you are certain that you would do so should Motoko asks, then it is your turn."

The two changed positions after Tsuruko resecured her towel about her torso and Keitaro asked her a serious question.

"Tsuruko-san, what will happen next?"

"Well, we need to make preparations for the wedding. I suppose the best place for it would be the Urashima shrine. I was told that it is on the property, correct?"

"Well, yes, it is, but, I meant... What will happen after the wedding?"

"Typically there is a recpetion of the bride and groom with a larger party of guests, friends and family, and at the end, the bride and groom do their best to enjoy consumating the marriage. I suppose you mean something other than that, though."

"Well, uh... Yeah... I was thinking, what will happen more long-term than that?"

"That, Keitaro-san, I cannot say. At that point, it will be up to you and your wife. The best I could do is wish you luck."

"I guess I was kind of looking for pointers on how to make it work out, you know?"

"You need to be yourself. I will not tell you not to change, because you will change, but, be yourself through it all. Motoko has grown to trust you and appreciate you because you think of others before yourself. But, you have to be happy with the decisions you make too. No matter how much you give your partner, a marriage will not last if you are not happy with the situation you find youself in. Give all that you need to, but do not put yourself out too much to sustain it. And do not worry. In time, Motoko will start to give back to you in time."

"I see."

"Are you sure you want to marry my sister, Keitaro-san? You seem unsure of your decision, and it is not too late to change your mind."

"I think I can be happy married to Motoko. And it's not just because she'll be happy, I think."

"So, you are certain?"

"Yes, my mind's made up. But... Uh... We don't have to rush to consumate the marriage, right?"

"Is that the doubt that I had heard in your voice?"

"I guess. I don't think Motoko will let me live past the ceremony if she finds out we have to make it official that day."

"I see what you mean. Ideally, you would, but I think exceptions can be made from the clan's elders in this case."

"Oh. Good."

"But, you will eventually have to produce a child, Keitaro-san, if you expect to have Motoko reinstated into the Shinmei-Ryuu."

"..."

"Trust me, she will open up to you. You may just need to give her a reason to do so."

The conversation trailed off at that point and the two who had both long since been done getting clean soaked in the hot water of the springs and let their muscles relax. Eventually, Tsuruko left the manager with his thoughts and bid him a good night and found herself back to her sister's bedroom for the night. Keitaro sat in the springs for a few minutes longer before he packed up his thoughts and went to his own room for the night. He found himself unable to sleep for quite some time trying to find confidence in what Tsuruko had told him and eventually fell asleep, dreaming of the ups and downs of a marriage with Motoko.

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Tsuruko woke the next morning just after five am, and wondered why Motoko hadn't woken yet. She expected her younger sister to be awake at this hour every morning practising kata and doing somewhere near two thousand katana swings. But, Motoko was still asleep, if the snoring was any judge of her state of concsiousness. Fortunately for the younger girl, she was far from asleep, having given up on true sleep hours before, after more than a couple dreams of a certain ex-ronin being romantic with her. It sickened her that she felt giddy and hot in the face about the dreams. Something told her that he had done something untoward the night before, but she had toned down her justice dispension to the point that she saw the perversion occur. So, she just lay on her bed trying to figure out why the brown-haired oaf had been so impressive in her dreams, or better yet, why he was in them at all. She felt ill, but not from a cold or flu. After a few minutes of sitting in silence, Tsuruko decided to wake Motoko and start the eventful day, hoping to accomplish everything necessary and a little of the desired touches for the wedding that was quickly approaching.

"Wake up, dear sister. I know that Keitaro-san's touch is nice, but it was far from dreamy."

It was at that point when Motoko broke from her reverie and heard what her sister had said.

"That pervert touched you! I knew he was no good. How did he touch you?" She intentionally left off her intention of separating his head from his body, and his limbs from torso.

"Oh, yes. He was quite the gentleman in the springs. Like I said, his touch is nice, but it's not dreamy. You should know that. Unless his dressing you really was better than the back wash he gave me."

"He WHAT?!"

"He carried you up the stairs to your room and insisted on having you dressed, because he said you'd feel cold and wake up awfully wearing just that towel. Then he and I bathed in the springs for some time. He's a good man from what I can tell."

"That pervert! I'll kill him!"

"Oh, Motoko-chan, he's not that bad. He tried to make sure that I'd dress you and wanted to scurry off to his own bath, but I told him that I would appreciate the company and the assistance in washing my back. And that aside, I will not allow you to maim or kill your husband to be."

"WHAT?!"

"Oh. Right. You would not know. Keitaro promised to marry you, thinking you would be happy being allowed back into the Shinmei Ryuu with full rank for marrying him. He is so considerate."

"That idiot. I would never marry him."

"That is not true, Motoko-chan. You told me yesterday that you were his fiancee. You have considered it at least once and liked the possibility. So, get up. We have a long list of things to do today."

"Like what?"

"Well, paperwork has to be signed for a marriage to be legal. And the ceremony is to be tonight at sundown."

"..."

"You did not think I would not make you marry him, did you? You chose to decieve me, sister. You have made your bed and now you must lie in it."

Motoko didn't know exactly what the phrase was meant to mean, but she had a feeling that it meant she was screwed. Somehow, she knew she'd be forced to marry Keitaro at sundown, no matter what she did to stop it. But she did have one thing going in her favor; she did not have to like him whatsoever to marry him. For all the clan cared, they could be mortal enemies, but, as long as they didn't kill one another, it was acceptable. She could even go so far as to ridicule him in public and beat the crap out of him in private, but she had to make sure she didn't piss him off enough to find a way to annul the thing, assuming he didn't already know that it wasn't possible. And really, if he could find a way out of it, she would be all for it, but something told her that if he did find a way out, if she made his life miserable, he'd just stick it out. It was so… irritating that he was so incessantly stupid and bullheaded. It was at that time Motoko decided to just ignore Keitaro until this whole thing ended up blowing up in Tsuruko's face, at which point she would end the whole mess.

It was interesting that the exchange was loud enough to be heard throughout the inn. Keitaro expected that Motoko would go ballistic about this whole thing as she always did. He knew that she'd misunderstand his intentions and call him a pervert, but having heard the shouting, he found out that the wedding was going to take place that night. He wondered what the rush on the thing was, but he soon guessed that Tsuruko had the same outlook on putting things off that he had; better now than never. He just rather hoped it wouldn't have happened so immediate. Things happening on the fly like this tended not to bode well for him. But, since there's no point in crying over spilled milk, he made preparations for the event by laying out his best formal kimono and tried calling his parents and grandmother to tell them of the situation and hope that they would come for the event. He rather left out the part that the marriage was arranged partly because he promised to marry a girl that hated his guts, but he was a bright side of life kind of person.

Kitsune, who had been asleep only for a few hours trying to figure out what was going on with Motoko's elder sister and why the younger girl was so afraid of her, was very displeased to hear Motoko's screams and, for one of the few times of the year where she didn't wake up with a hang-over, called her editor for the newspaper she occasionally wrote for and asked for permission to use the drama going on as a basis for a new article.

Shinobu, who had woken up a few minutes after Tsuruko, was in the kitchen making the final preparations for breakfast and tried her absolute best to ignore the shouting coming from Motoko's room and hoped that what she was hearing about a wedding would not happen. As much as she respected Motoko-sempai, she really would be heartbroken if he married her. 'He can't be happy marrying her, could he?' Something told her that it was all a misunderstanding, that he loved Naru, who again didn't deserve his affection, but at least she knew he liked her. The house's bluenette still hadn't come to terms with Naru being the favored one, but it was better than if it were someone else, she figured, because he would be happy. She assumed that Keitaro wouldn't be happy with Motoko as a wife, however and hoped with every fiber of her being that it was not true.

Suu, well, it was hard to say why she didn't wake up. She usually slept with Motoko, but since Motoko hadn't gone to bed until a few hours later than normal, she didn't know what to do. Motoko wasn't to be found in her room when she went to look and since Shinobu had dozed off, she reluctantly went to bed in her jungle of a room. Strangely, with all the technology Suu had created, she still had the worst time trying to get to sleep on her own. It was sad, really. The poor princess had some of the worst nightmares because she slept alone. Not even a stuffed animal would help her sleep like most other girls. No. She needed a live bed-mate to get to sleep. So it was really no surprise that she fell asleep several hours after she normally did. And it probably impacted when she'd wake up too, but really, there was no telling whether Suu was at all like any other human on the planet, assuming of course, she was human at all.

It was only seven thirty when Shinobu called everyone to breakfast, and everyone made their way, with the exception of Suu, to the dinner table, where Tsuruko, without much tact, announced that the wedding between Motoko and Keitaro they had heard about the night before was going to occur at sundown, and that she would appreciate it if nobody made an attempt to sabotage it. Afterward, she would have a small party arranged for those present and come Motoko's graduation from high school, she would be assisting Keitaro with not only the managerial duties, but also their marital duties as well. Keitaro colored for a minute once Tsuruko brought up the sex topic, and Motoko not only noticed, but she scowled from Keitaro's lack of character and her sister's lack of proper breakfast conversation. She also believed her sister had no control over whether the two could have sex, much less, whether they would. When Shinobu expressed the concern about Naru, Tsuruko brightened up. Narusegawa had been a topic of conversation between her and the manager in the spa the night prior, and she made every note about the unknown girl that she could and assessed how much she could be a factor in whether the marriage worked or not. She was quite eager to find out what Keitaro had to say to the group at large about that subject, as it might be a major factor in whether he tries to make the marriage last.

After a few moments of being diplomatic with his choice of words before saying them, he sighed and told them the situation.

"I told her that I loved her when my leg broke. I told her that, and I still love her. She never once said anything back. I know she heard me, because when I said it, she stopped walking out of the room for a minute, and then she started walking again once she thought about it. I really love Naru, but I can't do anything about it if she doesn't tell me how she feels. And right now, Motoko needs me because if she doesn't get married, she gets kicked out of the Aoyama clan. It's my fault she's being kicked out, and so it's my job to fix it. I promised Tsuruko I'd marry Motoko and do everything I can to make her happy. I just hope Naru understands and doesn't hate me for it."

Motoko was blushing she was so impressed. She didn't think Keitaro was doing anything for her or anyone else for that matter, but here he was, PROMISING to do everything he could to make Motoko happy and try to fix the situation so she could be who she was and who she wanted to be. But it irritated her that Keitaro had given up on Naru-sempai. If he really love her, she reasoned, he wouldn't let something like that stop him from perusing her still. Also, it just so happened that she could be mad at him for bringing her into the mess of being married and very nearly kicked out of her clan for his stupidity.

'Wait. He almost got me kicked out of the Aoyama? What did he do?! I WILL kill him!' It then occurred to her that she didn't have anything with which to kill him, at least not in any way she might have had skill. Her katana lay in shards and a broken hilt on a long swath of silk in her room as an honor to the sword and a reminder of how she failed her implement, rather than it failing her. The swordswoman's duty was not to use the sword to kill or protect, but to be the guide for the sword to do so. Her katana was in many ways a part of her, having become more than just a conduit for her ki, but one attuned to her moods and fighting style that it had become particularly good at doing what Motoko asked of it. It was then that she realized that having her sword shattered was already a dismissal from clan Aoyama, whether Keitaro knew it or not. She didn't think about it, but she was a ronin now, and what's worse, a ronin without a blade. Marrying Keitaro wasn't going to give her back her sword and as such, she felt she might as well remain kicked from her own clan.

"As Keitaro-san says, Motoko-chan would otherwise be forced to find a job and pay her own rent, having been cast from her family for not only the dishonor of lying to a clan elder, but also the ultimate dishonor of breaking her own sword. It is so fortunate of you all to have such a kind-hearted manager as him."

'Oh. I didn't think about that either. I guess I should accept the offer Urashima is giving me. He's giving me a chance to be Aoyama again. But at what cost? Is it really worth it? Do I really want to be his wife just for the monetary support?'

"Er… Why's it Motoko's fault that she's got a broken sword? I mean, you broke it when you swung yours at her like you did."

"It is the duty of the swordswoman to protect the blade she carries just as the blade is to protect her. Motoko was not prepared for the attack that broke her blade as she should have been and it is therefore her fault for her broken blade. You would not expect one of the Aoyama's enemies to take the blame for breaking her sword but rather just use it as an advantage. It is the same case in this scenario. Unless Motoko were to find another blade by her own means, she will never be able to atone for the loss of her first blade, the blade the Aoyama provided her."

"So… I can't just give her the sword I got around here somewhere? She has to make her own or something?"

"Keitaro-san, you are offering your bride to be a blade of your own? It is not only acceptable for her to receive such a gift, but it is very generous of you to give such a gift to her, especially in this situation. You are much more noble than one would imagine."

"Er… I don't know about all that, but, if I give her the sword and we get married, Motoko's off the hook and reinstated into the clan Aoyama?"

"Noble and modest. A good combination. But, in a way, yes. She is as you said, "off the hook" with the clan, but she will be forever in your debt for your great generosity toward her."

Keitaro didn't know what to think about Motoko being forever in debt to him, but something in the part of his brain that kept him alive overpowered the part that told him to feel excited about that. As a whole, he felt sad that he'd become so important to Motoko, and hoped she would at least forgive him for putting her through such a mess.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer still in effect. I own no characters, but rather the plot of the divergence.

Also. I wanted to thank the readers that left comments. It was cool to hear so many of you praise the story. I also wanted to address some concerns people may have had.

A few readers noted that in the scene where Keitaro and Tsuruko were in the baths, it seems like I had two scenes back to back in the springs and didn't know which I liked better. What really happened was that I had a small scene there that I took out after my pre-reader suggested it. It is meant to read the way it is. Also, someone noticed that I made the first chapter about 11k words. It seems really long, but it flowed right, in my opinion. The rest will be shorter, because I am still writing the story. Also, if anyone is willing and able to preread this, I am still looking because my pre-reader has some things that are more important to deal with than reading this thing. You can IM me at k3v1nash3r if you want to preread it.

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The meal was quite a muted affair, as everyone had a sense that things had turned on their respective heads from this thing. It was a scary fact for Kitsune that Tsuruko was dead serious about the wedding, or else she'd be teasing Motoko and Keitaro about the whole thing. Something in the sly girl's mind told her that Tsuruko liked the dim manager enough to cover his back when the words got hurtful. And Kitsune was feeling miserable about the situation. It seemed, rightly so, that the day before, Keitaro was slobbering about her best friend who she stood aside for, and now, at the first sign that she didn't want to discuss it immediately, he finds someone else to be with. It was infuriating that Kitsune tried to find out why her friend had blown off the one guy that gave her everything she could ever want, and the guy didn't so much as thank her, when she wanted him for herself all along. But, she had herself to blame for that as well, at least partially. She knew that Keitaro was unreliable when it came to knowing what a girl was thinking, but it didn't make her any happier about the situation.

Shinobu was appalled that Keitaro was going to be married to Motoko. She wept for him, and for herself, and Naru, because they all were losing their chances at happiness. Sure Keitaro had a clue that he shouldn't have lied to Tsuruko, but marriage was forever. And Shinobu felt that she had a chance with Keitaro as long as he didn't marry anyone before she could marry him. But now, she lost her chance. Keitaro was gone for good. Nothing she could do would ever change how easily he slipped through her finger. She wanted to cry all her tears, but something within her told her to be happy for him, that he would need her support to live though this at all. So, she'd put on a false smile and a cheery act as best she could for as long as she could.

Motoko felt completely angry. She realized that to some degree, it wasn't Keitaro's fault, but she couldn't believe it. She wanted to feel completely happy knowing that it was her manager's meddling that ended her life. Sadly, the few ounces of feeling she harbored for him blamed it on herself, knowing that her sister couldn't be blamed for it either. And so Motoko was mad at everyone and everything, because being mad at herself would only mean she was wrong, and she strove for perfection. Sure she assumed that eventually she would get married mainly because Tsuruko proved to be unable to yield children, and sure she assumed that it would be a traditional wedding at a shrine, but she expected to have some choices in the matter of when and to whom she would be married. Keitaro, she figured, was the one that stripped her of those basic choices. So she had every right to express her frustration upon him until he either died or got a divorce, or something. And as much as she wanted to beat the hell out of her sister for making her make good on this engagement thing, she did like living at the Sou as a kendoka and future clan leader to one of the most famous Japanese sword dojos.

Keitaro was quite pleased that he was being so praised. For the moment, he forgot that Naru had left him hanging, and he was sure that not only was he going to be happy with this marriage, but so would Motoko. He had assumed that everything would change for the better now that he was about to become a married man running a girls' dorm, and he assumed that Motoko might ease up on him too. Things were looking up, as far as Keitaro could imagine. He never did realize how much of a drastic change this would make, and never figured that it would cause major schisms in the social dynamics of the dorm. But, as the saying goes, ignorance is bliss.

The day would be filled with finding a suitable lawyer that could smooth over the concerns of Motoko's age in the matrimonial process, but also be diplomatic in working with the families pressing concerns about the status of Motoko as a member in which family and the holdings Aoyama would be forfeiting for the right to be the clan of the couple's first child, and the concessions that Urashima would give to the couple for their future. As it stood now, Keitaro was the only full-blood Urashima that might have a child, and assuming that Haruka were not to have any children at any point in the future, the clan would dissolve in the event that Keitaro could only have one heir. Hina would not be pleased to see her and her husband's legacies fall apart for something as silly as Keitaro signing his first child away to the Aoyama. She did understand that Tsuruko hadn't been successful in bearing a child for her own clan and could understand the concern the Aoyama held for the exact same reason she had, but she didn't have to like that they would try to have rights to her first great-grandchild. It would be something of a migraine for any lawyer involved in the proceedings, but the payoff was undeniably sizable from either side, or potentially, both.

It was actually rather mindboggling at the quickness that the Aoyama legal retainer, Miamoto Saito managed. Hina had sent her own clan's legal councilor over the night before to work with a third party to smooth the details over. Haruka lent him her spare bedroom in the Tea House for the evening and he was exchanging pleasantries with Miamoto only moments after his arrival. The two agreed on a sufficiently unbiased third party lawyer from the Kanagawa prefecture after only a few minutes of deliberation, and within the hour, Akari Shinji was greeting the two councilors, the wedding party and Tsuruko. Before his arrival, however, Miamoto mentioned to Tsuruko that Motoko would have to have parental approval for the wedding as she was underage. Tsuruko thought about that fact for a moment and asked him whether she could stand in as a parental proxy as she was one of the few clan elders, knowing that it would still be met with a no.

"Tsuruko-sama, you know that legally, you are not her guardian, even as one of the Aoyama elders. The Ministry of Family Relations will only require the paperwork to be fixed, and as you made it clear that you wanted no hiccups with the wedding, it would be a necessity to have your parents' approval. I apologize for that, but I am unable to change that fact."

"So be it. I rather expected such. I hope your trip to Kyoto was not too long, as we will have to go back. Mother and father will not approve of a wedding for Motoko without meeting the groom. I assume that the only other concern would be the nature of Motoko-chan's place in either Aoyama or Urashima, yes?"

"Yes, madam. Also, the marriage license requires her signature, as well as that of the groom."

"I will return to the family home after the wedding ceremony with a signed license. When we arrive, you are released from having to return here for the proceedings. Make certain, however, to have an original copy of the concessions between our two clans."

"I will not fail to do so, Tsuruko-sama."

"Thank you, Saito-san. Now, I have some things to discuss with Motoko and my parents before we leave. Please inform the rest of the party they are to prepare to travel to Kyoto."

"Yes, madam."

With that, Tsuruko pulled aside Motoko from the living room and very pointedly, presented her the situation before her.

"Motoko-han, as you may or may not be aware, to be married, you will need Mother and Father's approval. As you can assume, we will be leaving shortly, as there are many things to be done before dusk. So, you have a choice before you. You can find within yourself the trust for your manager you gave him yesterday and convince Mother and Father that you do want this marriage. Or, I can force you to marry him with Mother and Father's approval, and punish you by also naming you the dojo's mistress. As you can guess, I will take pleasure in pushing you until you are an acceptable mistress for the clan's skills. Or, you may choose to tell them that you lied to me about marrying Keitaro-san to give you time before you were named swordmistress, and that as a punishment, I expect you to marry him and that you are seeking their council. But know that in the event that they approve of the wedding and you choose not to go through with it or they fail to grant you permission, you will be faced with a most displeasing future. So, for which shall I inform Mother and Father to prepare?"

Motoko thought about the option before her. Tsuruko would make good on the threats before her, and something told her that she could be every bit as unpleasant as marrying Keitaro. But at least she knew that her parents would approve of the wedding in any case, beliving that any man that offered to marry her would be good for her. And they were quite good judges of character. Plus they would be willing to offer advice as to how to keep happy in the arrangement. Still, it wasn't much of a choice presented her, but seeking her parents' council was the best of the three evils.

"I will trust Mother and Father will guide my path better than I could alone."

"Wise choice, Motoko-han. Would you like to tell Mother you are going to be married?" Tsuruko was beaming, a taunting smirk playing on her face.

"Hmmph." Motoko knew that Tsuruko was goading her, but she was no longer in a position to fight her. Instead, she turned on her heels and strode away from the phone, hoping she could ignore her Mother's squeals of delight that would inevitably spew from the phone in the kitchen.

Being a schoolday, Motoko would be forced to miss her perfect attendance record, but everyone else would be attending their appropriate schools. Kitsune would regrettably be in charge of making sure that anything needed doing would be done, or that things needing Keitaro's attention would be set aside until he returned. Haruka might find time in her day to check on the dorm, but Keitaro felt that it would be unfair to impose on his aunt, and Kitsune was awake as it was. Nothing was likely to come up, but he felt confident that Kitsune would be okay keeping it running all the same. Motoko sunk her head, knowing her sister had told her mother that she found a boyfriend and that she was considering marrying the man. She could hear the pleased squealing of her mother, and was sure that Tsuruko had informed her of the older sister's view of the situation, but her mother would not be disheartened unless her daughter was planning on marrying a Yakuza or a drug addict, neither of which was even remotely likely. Keitaro was on the secondary line with Hina put in exclusively for her to tell him what to do.

Hina was smiling over the phone, Keitaro could tell. "Motoko isn't your promise girl, you know. How do you plan on explaining to your promise girl that you married another girl? You don't plan on telling her that you had to be your wife's knight in shining armor, do you?"

Keitaro blanched. It hadn't occurred to him that he still didn't know who his promise girl was, or whether she still knew him, or anything about her at all. "Err… Granny, who is my promise girl?"

"That is for me to know, and you to find out in time. I hope she forgives you. It'd be a shame to find you married a girl in your dorm only to find out your promise girl was under your nose all along."

"Hmmm. So, you're not going to tell me?"

"Grandson, you have more than just one promise girl nowadays, do you not? Maybe you ought to be more specific."

He knew she was toying with him. It was her game, goading him and making him look foolish. But he still loved the old woman. It wouldn't be that tragic.

"I mean, who's the girl I promised to go to Tokyo U with from 17 years ago."

"Oh, well, I know who. It's almost a shame you don't remember. I also know you know them also."

"Well, will she understand that I am sorry?"

"You will see in a short time, Grandson. But, you need not worry about that right now. I would venture a guess that Motoko isn't quite pleased. What about you?"

"I can be happy knowing Motoko's going to be happy."

Something told him that his grandmother was rolling her eyes, because he heard her say "typical Keitaro" under her breath.

"So, how do you propose to resolve the issues that will come up with the lawyers?"

"What do you mean, Granny?"

"Well, for one, Motoko's going to need someone that has money to support her. And you need to have a plan for keeping you all supported when you have children. And, then you have to work out which of the two clans will lay claim to which of your children. You know that I expect you will have at least one child in our clan. And I would venture a guess that the Aoyama will expect you to concede your firstborn to them as an Aoyama."

"Uhh. I didn't think about all that. I guess I thought we'd deal with it when it came up."

"I'm sure you did."

"Well… Um… If it really is that big of a concern of which clan gets what, uh, couldn't we just combine our clans?"

"That is an interesting idea. But I have some things I need to take care of, Grandson. I love you and we will talk later."

"I love you too, Granny. Goodbye." Keitaro paused, and then realized he hadn't gotten a reply from Granny. "Wait… What do you think of us just becoming a big clan?"

And Hina was gone.

Keitaro was at a loss. But he had to go rejoin the group. He was told they were going to Kyoto. For what, he didn't know, but it had to be important, he reasoned. It's not everyday that you take three lawyers with you and your bride to be and her sister to your bride's family's hometown. It was then that Keitaro realized he was meeting Motoko's parents, and he was dressed in a t-shirt and pair of broken in khakis, and wanted to change. He had to make a good impression.

"I'll be right back. I need to change."

"I apologize, Keitaro-san, but we need to leave to make the tram to make the train to Kyoto." He didn't know that Tsuruko had been off the phone, but he did now.

"Uhh… I guess, I'll go as I am then."

"You look fine, Keitaro-san. You look like a real person, rather than a living god. Well, farewell, Konno-san. Please be sure to call Keitaro with the number I have provided you in the event that something catastrophic arises."

"Err… See ya, Kitsune. Have fun."

"Mitsune-san, we shall be back by dinner. Please inform Shinobu of such. Good day."

With that, the party of 6 left the dorm and walked to the tram stop and began their day-long excursion to Kyoto and back.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer still in effect.

* * *

The black Mercedes motorcade wasn't something Tsuruko found surprising, but it did awe Keitaro. He had never been in a situation where someone was waiting on him as far as he could remember; especially not anyone dressed in black business suits that drove Mercedes. Motoko noticed the surprise in Keitaro, but thought nothing good of it. She assumed that he noticed it and figured that his dowry would be sizable. Nothing could prepare her for the fact that Keitaro felt humbled by the display.

"Isn't this a bit much?"

"I know you mean no offense, but the Aoyama clan takes the safety of its heiresses very seriously, Keitaro-san. These men are highly trained martial artists that have taken oaths to protect Motoko and myself. And they are paid a king's ransom for the nature of their duties."

Each of the men greeted Motoko and Tsuruko with the same greeting. "Welcome back, Tsuruko-sama, Motoko-sama."

Motoko knew it was expected of them, but she still felt somewhat better thinking that the men really were pleased to see her, no matter the circumstance.

One of the men in the second car, presumably not the driver, halted Keitaro and looked very carefully into his face, seemingly searching his soul for intent and verified his identity via a criminal database, noting the small man's job title. Unless the database was wrong, Motoko had been in his care for nearly two years, and now he was entering the Aoyama ancestral home. He was an Urashima, but the suited man had a gut feeling that something was very wrong. The guards were already scheduled to pick up Motoko from the Kyoto train station, but the new arrival, along with two unknown business types made him uneasy. He took notice that Miamoto was also with the group and though he knew three of the six, Miamoto's presence suggested to him that something had gone wrong, and that the kid was here to face some punishment.

Tsuruko noticed his bristly demeanor and informed the tall man of the situation who nodded back to Tsuruko and replied to her only a few decibels louder. "I trust your judgment, Tsuruko-sama, but I do not have to trust him."

"It is good to know that you will not let my judgment cloud yours, Keiichi." She smiled a pleasant smile to the man and entered the first vehicle, followed by Miamoto.

The man known to Keitaro as Keiichi led Motoko, and Akari to the second vehicle. Keitaro and his legal councilor, a gaunt old man known as Suzuki Gendo, were lead to the final car of the motorcade.

The ride to the Aoyama estate was not longer than ten minutes, but after entering the gates to the estate, the three cars drove for another five minutes along a windy white stone driveway surrounded by a forest of evergreens. Keitaro was marveled at the immensity of the manor, and had a hard time keeping his mouth from brushing along the stone driveway once the car was stopped and the door was opened by another guard.

"This is your home, Motoko? Wow! This place is enormous."

Motoko mumbled under her breath, but Tsuruko could make out the "it make you feel insignificant" reply.

"It's good to be home, is it not, Motoko-han?" Tsuruko was beaming, knowing how much her sister felt out of place in the Aoyama estates.

Out of respect, Motoko forced herself to choke out the quiet reply of "Yes, it will be nice to see Mother and Father again."

It was just a moment later that the entry building's doors were opened by a short-statured porter who greeted both Motoko and Tsuruko.

"Hello, Tsuruko-oba-san, Motoko-oba-san. You are expected in the council room."

"Thank you, Toshio-san."

With that, Toshio ran off, having opened the doors for the party, hoping that he could have the doors to the council room opened before they arrived.

"Why does Toshio-san insist that we are his aunts, o-nee-san?"

"Because I asked him to do so. He may not be my nephew, but it makes me feel less like a barren woman because he might as well be my own. You do not feel old because he addresses you as an aunt, do you?"

"No. I just wished he would address us as the cousins we are to him."

The group had left the entryway, following Tsuruko to the council room and bowed politely to Motoko and Tsurko's parents. Miamoto then stepped from the back of the group and approached the table to the side of his lord.

"Welcome home, Motoko-san. Tsuruko says you have some things you would like to discuss."

"Yes, o-too-san."

"Well, we shall discuss it at great length. But first, let me meet our guests."

At that point, her father, a great bear of a man known as Aoyama Daitaro, gestured to Keitaro, knowing that he was the big show, the rest of the group just pawns in a greater game.

Keitaro took a step forward and bowed again, this time more deeply. "My name is Urashima Keitaro, Deitaro-sama." Once he raised himself again, he saw that Daitaro was smiling. That reassured him.

The gigantic man gestured to his daughter and Keitaro to come closer to the large oak table in the center of the room behind which he sat. He first addressed Keitaro and Motoko next.

"I see you took the opportunity on the train to prepare for this meeting. But, Keitaro-san, while I appreciate the respect I believe you meant to show me, Daitaro-san will be sufficient in the future. " He turned his head a small bit to face Motoko and said "Daughter of mine, your sister tells me that you would like to explain why you are here yourself. You have my full attention, Motoko-chan."

"O-too-san, I am here seeking your guidance in the matter of lying to Tsuruko-san about marrying Urashima-san for the purpose of delaying my taking up the role of Swordmistress of the Shinmei Ryuu School."

The man smiled once Motoko finished speaking presumably because he did not want to have to force her to explain why she was in Kyoto with three lawyers and her dorm manager rather than just her sister.

"You assume that I already know the choices that you have been presented. Yes, I do know them, but it would do you some good, I think, to tell me in your own words, the choices presented you."

"Tsuruko-san told me that I may seek your approval for a marriage with Urashima-san, at which point, I may seek to restore the status of heir to the dojo, or I may dissuade you from granting your approval of such a marriage and be punished with a most difficult preparation for the purpose of being placed at the helm of the dojo. I was informed that in the event that you grant permission and I choose not to act upon it, or I fail to garner such approval for marriage, I will be placed into that position."

"So, Motoko-chan, it seems you are asking me to suggest to you the better of the two choices before you, be it, marry this man, or bear the weight of the Aoyama clan dojo. Am I correct?"

"Yes, o-too-san."

"In that case, I have a difficult choice for you. You must follow my advice if you want it. Agreed?"

"That does not exactly sound like a choice. It sounds more like a sentencing."

"Are you saying that you do not trust my advice, Motoko-chan?"

"Would you, had you found yourself in similar circumstances? Could you think anything other than something unpleasant from your choice of words?"

"No. I would not trust the advice given to me implicitly in this circumstance. And it was wise of you to be wary. But, is it more pleasant for you to take the path your sister will give you if I do not give you my advice?"

"Pain and exertion only strengthen the warrior. Venturing into the unknown blindly is a great way to find oneself without his life."

"How very true. It seems that you have learned lessons students older than yourself find them learning through great difficulty. Well, I will give you my advice, and expect that you will follow it, lest you would like to be faced with the difficulties your sister will make you endeavor."

"But, first, I will need to know what the situation is before I can be certain of the best course."

Daitaro stood and faced the remaining people in the room and bid them leave.

"Pardon my inhospitality, but I would hear the nature of the relationship between my daughter and her dorm manager alone. Please feel free to walk around the premises at your leisure." With that, he waited until the only people in the room were himself, his daughter and Keitaro.

"Motoko-chan." He paused for a moment before he calculated the response he expected from his daughter to the question he had in his mind. "I understand that you would prefer not to marry Keitaro-san. I expect to know why, but first, tell me why you should marry him."

"Urashima is a very kind person, always putting others' needs before his own. He is also very driven to get what he desires. In fact, he has managed to enter Tokyo University after being a ronin three years in a row. He also takes the role of manager of the dorm very seriously, doing his best to maintain the grounds without assistance. He makes promises with every intention of keeping them, and follows through on them. Additionally, he will strive to make sure that I am happy above all else. And above all else, he's managed not to molest any of the residents at his dorm."

"I see. And yet you sound distressed by the thought that you might marry him." He turned to face Keitaro. "Why does marrying you bother my daughter, Keitaro-san?"

"I can only guess that she thinks that I will be a pervert, sir."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Motoko and another girl at the dorm tend to think that I'm being a pervert a lot. But, honestly, I am just really accident prone. I really don't mean to fall and grope you or Naru, Motoko."

"So this is what I've heard about. Motoko-chan. Is this the cause of his getting beaten?"

"Yes, father."

"And does he apologize?"

"Yes, father."

"Keitaro-san, have you ever seen your tenants nude forms?"

"Yes, but I didn't mean to. I am already looking at the floor before I realize I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Lechery is still lechery even if it is not on purpose."

"Actually, Motoko-chan that is not the case; lechery is a man trying to look at you naked. But from what your sister tells me, you have gotten quite good at many of the family's techniques. Are you suggesting that you think he will try to make you do something sexual you do not want him to?"

"He could not rape me any more than I could be Emperor."

"Then, Motoko-chan, what is it about him that bothers you?"

"It bothers me, I guess, that he gets into the situation where he has to prove himself a good person."

"Ah. So he is a good man?"

"He hardly qualifies as a man. He is of age to be a man, but he lacks the quintessential courage and strength of body and mind to be a man."

"If it takes just courage and strength to be a man, does that make you a man?"

No. She knew that it wasn't all it took. It took the right equipment too.

He asked another question. "And if it doesn't, may I suggest that he does have courage offering to marry you, knowing that he would be punished with the fury of the Aoyama clan skills when he does something misconstrued as perverted? Nobody else would willfully face that treatment, correct?"

"Yes, I guess he does."

"And keeping up the dorm must be a difficult task, with him being tossed and punched through walls all the time, no?"

"Yes, it takes a great deal of strength, it would seem, to keep the dorm in good shape."

"And having the endurance to keep failing until you succeed could be defined as a measure of strength of mind, also, correct?"

"Father, if you think that Keitaro is without fault, please spare me the misery of being dragged further into finding a positive relationship with him and give your approval for the wedding."

Daitaro was livid, but knew that if he let his temper reign, he would regret it. His daughter was powerful, and though not on the same level as himself, she was unpredictable with her lack of complete training. He might hit her, and though he would not only regret hitting her, he would be unable to contain his rage once she returned his blow.

"Motoko-chan. I will excuse your temper this time, but you may not be so fortunate next time. But, it is not my intention to force you into a relationship with him until you can be happy with Keitaro-san. It is my intention to give you an opportunity to reconsider your feelings for him before you cast him aside. I know that you will not come to love him today, but I wish that you might find the courage to give a man such as him the chance to make you happy. I hope that you can find the courage to trust a man, and I certainly hope he earns it and keeps it, because sprits know that you will not give him a chance to lose your trust again."

The room's atmosphere calmed as the tension between father and daughter waned. Silence reigned for a long time as both Motoko and her father eased their stares and both found their internal Zen.

"I know that you will only ever find trust and love for Keitaro-san, if ever, after time together. I just hoped to open your eyes to see what others might see within him. You chose to ignore him for whatever reasons good or bad, and I wanted to give you the opportunity to give him a chance to earn your respect trust and maybe even your love." With that, he turned his head to Keitaro who he had left to watch the father and daughter go back and forth and sit stunned by the show of vehemence.

"I am terribly sorry that I got angry with my daughter, Keitaro-san. I hope that she can, in time, see that I truly seek to find what is in her best interest. I will not apologize for you having to see it. I believe that any emotion you have with someone should be seen to them and anyone involved. I think of it as cowardly to be angry with someone behind his back. Anyway. Please, I would like to hear from you."

"What do you want to know, sir?"

"Tell me, why should you not marry Motoko-chan?"

"Sir?"

"Yes. Tell me why you think I ought not to let you marry my daughter. I told you I am looking after her best interests."

"Well, the biggest thing is that, like Motoko says, I do a lot that I have to try and make people think better of me. I know it's an accident to go into the springs when someone says my name, but it would be a lot better if I had the sense not to go looking in the springs for someone calling my name."

"Yes. Things would be better if people were inherently perfect. But it takes someone of character to try to work toward it, no matter how unattainable perfection is."

"I guess."

"So, that is the only flaw you have? You cannot think of any other reasons you might not be a good husband for my daughter?"

"Well, I don't have a lot of money to support her after she graduates high school. After all, I only just recently got accepted into Todai."

"Money will only be a factor in a marriage if one of the couple makes it a factor. I think that there might be something else you are holding back. Tell me, Keitaro-san. You are the manager of a dorm of girls. You aren't dating anyone, are you?"

"Heh… Actually, now that you mention it, it wouldn't be fair to Motoko to marry her when I love another girl."

"Keitaro-san, tell me more about the girl you love."

"Well, Narusegawa is a pretty girl with a bit of a temper. She just got into Todai and she's taking classes now. She was the first to accept me as manager at some level, but she really has been hard to reach recently."

"You made a point not to say that you are dating her. Are you, or are you not dating her, and if not why? It would seem like you have changing attitudes if you are willing to marry my daughter when you are not dating the girl you love."

"No, sir. Naru and I aren't dating. I told her I love her the day I was hospitalized for my broken leg. She didn't respond. She hasn't talked to me since." Keitaro had a wistful look on his face, but made himself smile when he thought of the sight of Motoko crying in his arms. "But, I would marry Motoko because I saw her so sad last night; she was crying, as far as I could guess, for the first time in her life. She looked so sad and helpless. I promised her and myself that I would do everything I could to see her never be sad like that again."

The man looked skyward. So this young man was giving up his happiness for his daughter's. He was happy that someone cared for her that deeply. He worried that Motoko would not recognize his sacrifice, or worse yet, that she would let it go ignored. He knew that very few people would throw away everything they worked for so easily for her sake. He sighed and muttered under his breath. "I hope you know what you are doing, Keitaro-san. May the gods help you earn my daughter's love and respect, because you are giving up a great deal for her happiness."

He turned to face the two, and he addressed them both.

"Motoko-chan, Keitaro-san, it is up to you to be married now. I will grant my approval for such a wedding. Motoko-chan, I advise you to marry him, and give him every chance you can find the strength to give for him to win your trust and love. Keitaro-san, I suggest to you to stay the way you are, as you are of a dying breed. People that would die for another person are much more common than those that would live forever trying to make the other person happy, because it is a whole lot easier to die for a person you love than live for them, especially if they do not love you."

He stood from his kneeling position and bit them likewise. Once everyone was standing, he led the others out of the council room and to the central garden of the building complex and announced his decision to Tsuruko and the three lawyers. Motoko's mother rushed to his side, beaming brighter than the sun into his face. They spoke between themselves, but he said loud enough for Motoko to hear.

"Motoko-chan, please forgive me. I know you will hate the decision I made, but please trust that I think you will be happy down the road life provides you."

The lawyers provided Daitaro a document that provided him an opportunity to sign his daughter into marriage, and handed him the rest of the documents concerning the marriage for his safe keeping.

Motoko's mother then stopped fussing with her husband and made a point to show her daughter her happiness. She joked about how she no longer had to fuss with Motoko about finding a good man to marry and then introduced herself to her daughter's groom.

"Ketiaro-san, I am Aoyama Aoi. I would love to be able to come to the wedding, but Tsuruko tells me that it is planned for tonight at the dorm and I cannot be there for it. My husband and I would like to be able to come for another more traditional wedding if it can be arranged in the future."

He promised to do his best to make Motoko happy and hoped to be able to invite them to another wedding ceremony as well, but would not promise it would happen anytime soon.

With the formalities completed, the motorcade was filled again and the parents of the two Aoyama girls saw their children and the cars out of the estate. Keitaro noticed that Daitaro was talking, but was too far away to make out what he was saying to his wife. When he sneezed, he guessed that the father of his bride to be was talking about him, but wouldn't guess that he had said to her that he hoped Keitaro was quite durable because he was sure to see Motoko have a number of very bad days in the weeks to come.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer still in effect.

* * *

The train and tram back to the Hinata-Sou was a quiet affair; Motoko made certain it would be. It was evident that she would prefer not to be marrying Keitaro, but it seemed that she was willing not run away from the idea either. She had told herself that she would never fall for Keitaro, no matter how selfless he was, and she felt that the sentiment was genuine. Like she had told her father, it grated on her patience that he needed to prove himself a good person. She had it in her head that a truly good person would do good deeds without someone ever having to see the deeds he did, and that nobody could find a fault with him. But that was simply Keitaro.

He was always saying something stupid, or failed to notice something she felt he should have, or worse yet, he had the terrible habit of tripping over nothing more than maybe his own shadow and falling onto one of his tenants and groping them or leaving them in various states of undress. He did have some redeeming qualities, but they were not redeeming enough. And one of them she had the feeling that he was losing sight of. It irritated her that Keitaro agreed to marry her at the first sight that Naru didn't love him. She felt furious that he was giving up so easily. If he loved her like he seemed to, she felt that he ought to be fighting tooth and nail for her. She knew that he had the ability to give himself over for whatever he wanted, but he seemed to have quit before he started fighting for it. She almost felt cheated; that he was a lie. But she knew him better than to know that he was a fake. It then occurred to her that he had always done everything short of a confession in relation to winning Naru's affection. Maybe it was Naru's fault she was in this predicament. Maybe she could be furious at Naru for not accepting his love for her and then Motoko would not be able to get Keitaro to lie for her.

But in the end it was her fault. She knew it. She knew that no matter what the situation was at home, Keitaro would do whatever was needed of him to make something better for his tenants. But she was worried that he would change, much like everyone else does once they are married. And she promised herself that, should she ever be married, she wouldn't change; though now she surmised that keeping her was impossible. Motoko wouldn't be the same person she was if she were to be married in any case. And of all things, marrying Keitaro would mean a complete change of her personality. And if she married Keitaro and she changed, what would stop Keitaro from changing for the worse? It was emotionally taxing for her to expect that her marriage would be the most unpleasant facet of her life. She wanted to cry, but she knew that it wouldn't help her. So, instead she wore a most dreadful face for the travel back to the Hinata.

Keitaro wondered what was going on in Motoko's mind. Her father made a point to tell them both that he was sorry that he felt that marrying Keitaro was what he thought she should, but couldn't guess whether it was meant to be a slight against his character, or what. All he knew was that Motoko looked like anger incarnate.

The lawyers seemed pleased. Their duties were completed and it was not too difficult to arrange for the first child to be Aoyama, at the cost of a very stiff dowry. It was meant to be outlandish, because the Aoyama were not willing to join Urashima just because their heirs were being married. And yet they balked very little at the figure. Hina was still dismayed at the result, because her friends in the Aoyama thought the Urashima had lost their heritage and would not be joined to those that could not keep mindful of their past. Hina felt that she had a good enough respect for her ancestors to make good decisions looking forward, but it ultimately did not impact her. So she had hopped back into her helicopter and flew off to her dorm and give wishes for the best for her grandson and his bride.

Tsuruko looked wistful. She knew that Motoko would be on edge for a long time, but knowing that Keitaro would be at her side, no matter how much she would prefer it to be otherwise, she would make it through this. Motoko was stronger than any difficulty that could be thrown at her, as long as she wanted to overcome it. And nothing would be able to make her want to take her own life. At least, she thought Keitaro would not be what, or rather who, would make her want to do so. She would overcome it through her bullheadedness if need be. But it did not make it any easier for the older sister to force the younger through it.

So the ride to the Hinata was quiet. Even when the two lawyers made their appropriate exits they simply bowed their leave.

When the tram announced their destination, the trio departed for the dorm and walked with their heads wrapped around their various thoughts. The entryway door to the dorm was not even enough to bring them out of their minds. But Kitsune was. It seemed that the boozehound had been awake thinking all day, because the place was just as he left it. No bottles of sake were left about in Kitsune's typical manner. She even sounded like she had been thinking. And from the sounds of it, she wasn't thinking happy thoughts.

"Why are you all lookin' so glum? You'd think you went to a funeral rather than to go off and get permission to be married. Shouldn't ya'll be happy?"

Motoko responded for the group at large. "We did not go for just permission to be married, but also my funeral."

"What do ya mean?"

"Marrying Urashima will, if it has not already, kill me inside."

Keitaro didn't like how that sounded, but he wasn't really going to force Motoko to be happy about marrying him. The best that he could do is talk to her alone and promise to do everything he could to make sure it was pleasant for her. After all, the whole reason he agreed to marry her in the first place was to prevent her from the misery he expected her to live with had she not married him.

"Then why ya gonna marry him?"

"I do not have a choice in the matter anymore."

Tsuruko was about to correct her; that she would be welcomed back in Kyoto, after she atoned for the mistakes she had made, but Keitaro saw her and stopped her. If Motoko felt that way, it would do no good just to point out something she already ruled out, for whatever reason. It hurt that she felt that way about him, but he would rather feel that Motoko had no choice in the matter than her feel like she made the wrong decision in marrying him, because at least she could feel mad at someone else. He knew that she would be mad at him because of the marriage, but she didn't have to hate herself, which made a whole world of difference to him.

Motoko just went to her room to wait until her sister called her for the ceremony. Kitsune wanted to dig into Keitaro, but she couldn't find the energy to do it. Even if it did seem like it would make her feel better, she got the impression that Keitaro didn't expect Motoko to be so full of loathing of marrying him. It occurred to her that Keitaro never really caught on to how his tenants felt, and almost felt sorry for him. It would be intolerably painful for him until he had the old Motoko back. Kitsune knew that, and knew that it would be worse for him once Naru comes back and explodes on him.

Kitsune got up from her seated position on the couch and went to her room. She was feeling abysmal because Keitaro would feel worse, no matter how much he played it off. Nobody could really tell when he was sad, but she knew well enough how much it hurt for someone you cared about to say that they were going to stick around you because they had no other choice. Her father had done it to her. And thinking about her father always made the fox need drinks… enough to pass out.

Tsuruko wondered if what she saw just happen was an everyday occurrence for Keitaro. If it wasn't, she had to wonder how bad his life was that people would say something like that about his companionship and love. She hoped that it wasn't an everyday occurrence, that his life was just taking a nosedive right now and he'd rebound, but something about how he just seemed not to notice the terrible slight against him worried her.

Keitaro gently reached her wrist and tugged, dragging her from her thoughts.

"Keitaro-san, what is it?"

"Is Motoko going to be alright? Is she just dealing with it and she'll be fine a few days later?"

"I am sorry, Keitaro-san. I do not know. I certainly hope so, but I cannot tell."

Keitaro sighed. He really wanted to know that Motoko would be ok in a couple days, because it was evident she did not want to go through with it, and he felt that she would not try to stop it, nor would Tsuruko prevent it at that point either. Not even an act of God would be able to stop it. He looked at the ring that Tsuruko gave him in the car ride. It was a plain band of gold that, according to her was her own wedding ring that her husband gave her at their western style wedding. He also saw that the one she handed to her sister was unadorned stainless steel. At least her husband and he had similar tastes. But it did make him wonder why Tsuruko would have a western wedding. She was the paragon of Japanese traditionalism, and could only assume that her husband was similar in that regard, if not all of them. She just didn't seem the rebellious type. But he put that thought off for another time. He had to figure out a way to have Motoko come out of this not only alive, but lively. It wouldn't d him any good to marry her if only she were going to die on the inside because of it. It would have completely defeated the purpose of marrying her.

Keitaro was worried about how the marriage might work out and whether Motoko might eventually be restored as the dojo's heir, and whether she'd be happy when that happened. He couldn't know what that meant to the kendoka. He wasn't raised in a family that was supposedly famous for vanquishing demons. His family was, in days past, the clan the Emperor turned to for a different purpose. Supposedly, his family gained notoriety in the past for managing all the behind the scenes of the Emperor's rule. They were skilled speakers, being highly deceitful, and had talents for espionage. They also had with extorting people. And they used what they had gained to benefit their Emperor, to which he responded with handsome wealth. Or so the stories went. The point was that he couldn't have any idea how meaningful that role would be to Motoko, and how much it would mean to her to be able to attain it again, even though he was partially at fault for it being out of her reach. He wondered whether Motoko would be happy once she realized that, not long from now, she could be the swordsmistress again. Maybe she hadn't realized that he was doing this so she could have that. That would cheer her up, right? All he had to do was tell Motoko what was going on, at least in his head, and she would ease off of him.

Keitaro made toward the stairs, intent to talk to Motoko before the wedding and hoped she would be able to make it through the wedding before she got mad at him again, but Tsuruko gave him pause.

"Keitaro-san, please bring Motoko-chan down here. It is nearly time for the ceremony."

"Uh… Ok. I'll get her right now."

"Thank you, Keitaro-san."

"Sure thing, Tsuruko-san."

He realized then that he didn't have a chance to talk to Motoko and explain to her that her life wasn't over; that it was just another obstacle on the path to the life she wanted. She wouldn't give him time to discuss it. She would need at least an hour to hear him out on that. He made his way half-way up the staircase before he realized he hadn't changed into his kimono.

"Do I have time to change, Tsuruko-san?"

"I am sorry, Keitaro-san, but no. Dusk is quickly coming. Please be quick in retrieving Motoko-chan."

"Ok."

Damn, Keitaro thought. He made a point to lay his best kimono out this morning too. At least Motoko's had time to change, he thought. It didn't occur to him that she wasn't in the mood to care what she was wearing. But Keitaro usually failed to understand how his tenants really felt in any circumstance. This would be no different.

Keitaro bounded up the rest of the stairs up to the third floor and hastened himself toward Motoko's room, only to trip over his socks just in front of her door. It took him a second to right himself and knock on the door. Motoko replied to the summons with a quick "I am coming."

He didn't wait for her to march back down the stairs. He mind was in fifth gear and missed more than a few steps on his way down to the bottom floor, but was fortunate that he didn't miss the landing between the first and second floor because had he done so, Motoko would have seen him fall on top of Tsuruko and been too fed up with his antics to follow through with the marriage.

Instead, he crashed unceremoniously on the landing and was dazed for a few moments while Motoko passed him on her decent. For the second time in just a few minutes, he collected himself after finding it difficult to get to his feet again with his broken leg and hobbled his way down the few remaining stairs. Tsuruko watched and almost shook her head in disbelief that he was so clumsy. She could almost understand what Motoko meant that she was mad that he had to prove he was a good person. But she took all the bad things she had heard about him and chalked them up to balancing his strengths, because after all, no one person was perfect at everything.

So the three made their way to the Urashima shrine, getting there just as the sun's decent from the sky had ended for the day. It seemed that someone had followed Tsuruko's directions for a small table to be set at the shrine, along with a large number of candles. Hina greeted the company, grinning at Keitaro who wondered how she had gotten there and had everything so coordinated after the meeting in Kyoto.

"Hina-sama, are you willing to call forth the spirits of the Urashima for us? We seek their blessings in this wedding and through the difficulties that lie before the betrothed."

"I would be honored, Tsu-chan."

Tsuruko looked almost embarrassed to have been called that in public. But she realized that Hina was just being friendly. After all, it was far from the first time that Hina and Tsuruko crossed paths. It just had been quite some time since her mother's friend called her that.

Hina smiled. She knew that she did not want to be called Tsu-chan in front of Motoko and Keitaro. It rather diminished her superiority over her sister and brother-in-law. But Hina never did completely do as others wanted of her. She made life interesting for herself and those around her. And nobody could really say with any conviction that she meant it mean-spiritedly. The old woman just loved to have a laugh at other people's expense. But then again, who didn't, as long as it wasn't cruel?

Hina whispered to the relatives she had lost in a tongue only she could understand, and continued to do so as Tsuruko forced her sister and her groom to their knees on the soft grassy floor behind the table and lit some of the candles before them. Ritually, in a wedding of this kind, the spirits would have three chances combined to snuff out the lights of more than half of the candles, representing a disapproval of the marriage.

Once Hina finished calling the deceased spirits, Tsuruko spoke to the invisible host and the three living together, beginning the ceremony.

"Honored spirits of the fallen Urashima, we have called you to ask your blessings for the marriage of one of your own kin to one of the daughters of clan Aoyama. We would ask that you consider the souls of the two to be married and decide whether they can be joined spiritually for eternity. Before you, Urashima Keitaro has offered to marry Aoyama Motoko out of care for her future happiness. Motoko has accepted his offer by gaining the approval of her family to marry Keitaro. Please, as was custom in years past, guide us by leaving lit the candles before you denoting your blessings, or snuffing them out, signifying your disapproval."

The moment Tsuruko finished, an indefinable spiritual force blew, nearly killing the flame on two candles, but snuffing none out. Another gust of the presence came by after a few minutes, not even making the flame dance about the wick. And Keitaro watched, waiting for the third pass by, wondering if he had won their approval but after ten minutes, it still hadn't come. He started standing up, only to be shoved back down by Tsuruko's hand. A few minutes more passed before the final gust came, extinguishing three of the seven candles.

Tsuruko gave a minute's pause before she spoke again.

"Spirits of the Urashima, we thank you for your guidance. In accordance to the customs of your time, you have granted the couple your blessings. With much guidance, the pair will begin their life together, making sure to make a better effort to match spiritually to one another. With Urashima Hina as the living matriarch, she will bear witness to the exchanging of rings, signifying their exchange of trust for one another. May they strive to earn the approval of those that felt the union wrong."

Tsuruko then whispered to Keitaro to take Motoko's left hand and place the ring on her fourth finger, and he complied, noticing that the ring seemed to fit perfectly. She didn't have to tell Motoko to do the same to Keitaro. With their hands locked, Tsuruko spoke one final time to all who were present.

"May the spirits take witness to the kiss which will be the first of many to come in the years to come."

Keitaro didn't realize that he was expected to kiss Motoko, but she did. She moved her face forward, begrudgingly, and parted her lips ever so slightly, closing her eyes as she neared his face. When he didn't kiss her fifteen seconds later, she squeezed his hands a little more that she meant to, not wanting to seem like she wanted to kiss him, and he realized what he was supposed to do. The kiss was much like any kiss between two people that have never done so before. It was awkward when Keitaro's nose bumped into Motoko's, and he had his mouth open too much, ending up with her face getting sloppily wet, and when she opened her eyes at what he had done, it was apparent to her that he hadn't closed his eyes. He was staring at her and it unnerved her. Fortunately, Tsuruko did not make them try again, because she had a feeling that Keitaro could make a bigger disaster out of it if he were given another chance.

They separated more hastily than intended, but it was understandable for Motoko. Hina cackled. She hadn't seen such a bad kiss in many years. "Were you trying to swallow Motoko's lips, grandson?" When Keitaro blushed and turned his face from Motoko's, she laughed more loudly, and Tsuruko forced herself to suppress a chuckle for his dignity. Motoko felt ashamed. How she could marry a man that was so bad at kissing reflected poorly on her; it suggested she had very low self-esteem and had bad judgment. Hina laughed more gently when she told Motoko not to look so sad; there would be plenty of time for him to get it right. Then she blew out the candles still lit and snatched them from the table, having Keitaro bring it back into the dorm. Keitaro tried to reach out for Motoko's hand, but every time he felt it in his, she loosened it from his grasp. It seemed to him that things were going to be bad until the morning came.

When the quartet got back inside, Shinobu ran up to Hina, hugging the old woman and thanked her for preparing so much of the meal in advance. It seemed as though the old woman had started all of the cooking as Shinobu was leaving school and snuck out just in time for Keitaro and gang not to notice she was there, and the bluenette arrived shortly after they made their way to the shrine. Kitsune was sporting a changed outfit and a mug of hot tea, owing to Hina's demands not to drink her sorrows away, and the fox was voracious for a meal. Suu smelled the dinner the moment Hina started it, but the old woman had a way to deal with the Molmolian's dietary habits, although how Hina managed to carry such a large bunch of bananas for a woman her size never would be answered. It seemed that dinner was on the table just as the group was getting to it.

Every female noticed that Motoko didn't sit next to Keitaro, but he didn't. And even if he had, he'd have assumed that it meant nothing. But to Motoko, it meant she had not already begun deferring everything to him. It was the first defiance she would take, even if Keitaro never realized that it was meant to be such a thing. Hina was proud that Motoko was not laying herself down, defeated. Motoko had spunk, just like she did, and she respected that. Tsuruko was worried that Motoko would do anything she needed to push Keitaro away from her. Shinobu and Kitsune both were relieved that Motoko hadn't fallen for him already. It meant for them that they still had hope for that they truly desired. Suu didn't make it anything more than it was; Motoko was sitting at the table where she normally did.

The meal was a feast, but neither Hina nor Tsuruko made mention of the occasion, which suggested that nobody else should either. And that was sufficient. They all just enjoyed the food and company. There would be time to discuss things later. So the talk of the table was on everyone's lives and Hina's adventures, and the good shape the dorm was kept in. Motoko finished her meal after a small sampling of everything and pardoned herself from the table, citing that she needed a long soak in the springs. It was only a few minutes later that everyone else was finding their way from the table, leaving Keitaro and Shinobu to clean up the kitchen and dining room. It was fortunate for the duo that there was a large amount of food that was left over. Much of it could be reheated without a loss of flavor. And that had meant that there was less clean up than it might have been otherwise. So the pair worked fast to clean up the kitchen and once done, Shinobu excused herself to go get a dip in the springs herself. Keitaro used the free moment to go talk to Motoko. He hadn't gotten a chance to tell her how he meant for this to work out, and that he hoped she didn't feel that her life was over.

Motoko took her time undressing in her room mostly because her thoughts were taking most of her brain function. She knew that she was upset. That was an understatement really, but she wouldn't call it anything worse. She was torn because she felt that, had the kiss been a good, loving soul searching kiss, she would not be able to fight the feelings her heart held for Keitaro. But, the kiss was worse than a complete failure. And so her heart and mind were waging war over the course of action to take in regard to Keitaro. In the depths of her heart, she just really wanted to feel loved by a man. And her heart told her that Keitaro was the right kind of man for her. He would break for her before she would be miserable. But her mind felt ashamed that Keitaro was such a failure in so many things. She was still too in touch with her warrior spirit to let that life shatter. She was on the fence about him when he came knocking on her door and was completely naked, playing with threads of the towel she would wear to the baths.

Keitaro knocked again. He knew that Motoko was in there. She never left the lights on in her room when she wasn't in it. But she didn't respond. And she wasn't responding to the second set of knocks. He called her name, but she didn't seem to hear him, so he pulled the door open and was presented with the glorious view of Motoko standing like a deer in a car's headlights, naked before his eyes. She was jarred from her thoughts the moment she heard the door open, and the next moment, there he was, staring at her vulnerable form. And her thoughts still wishing that the kiss was a good one to end this fight inside her, she decided to test whether it would be enough.

Motoko strode to the doorway and pushed Keitaro hard against the wall behind him. And she walked up to him, closing her eyes when she was a few inches away from his face. Her lips parted like they had the last time and she targeted his lips from where she knew they had to be. Her kiss was a deep one, full of her emotions, but not the loving ones. They were the feelings of agitation, despair, loneliness, hope, and offerings of trust. Motoko could feel his eyes on her, so she reached to his face and gently closed them for him. With his eyes closed, Keitaro returned the kiss with his own feelings. But his most powerful feeling was that of caring. And Motoko didn't feel that Keitaro understood her, still. So she released his lips and thought for a moment and picked up her towel, walking down the stairs nude.

\

Keitaro was stunned. He didn't know what just happened. One moment, he was sure Motoko was going to kill him, and the next, she was kissing him. It was a great kiss. And the moment after that, she was walking away from him, mad at him. He assumed that she was just confused and decided to go get a bath in his barrel and go to bed. The following morning would give him a chance to talk to her.

But Keitaro hadn't figured how hard he would have to reign in his lust for the image he saw that night. He saw her naked, and this time, she was awake, and she kissed him, hard. He didn't know what to think, other than that Motoko might have been hiding some deep feelings of love for him.

Motoko was outside in the changing area before Keitaro was walking toward his room. And she had found the answer. Keitaro should have just kissed her right. But he didn't. And it wasn't that he couldn't. She had a great one with him just minutes before. So, he didn't kiss her properly. And on top of that, he walked in on her changing. She was naked. And he stood there, gawking. He couldn't stop himself from being a beast. But, her heart said to her, he didn't stare. He saw and he looked into your face. But he was drooling, her mind countered. And her heart fired back that he had every right to; that she was gorgeous. And finally heart and mind agreed that they could make him win her again.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer is still in effect.

* * *

Keitaro stood outside Motoko's door. He had been standing there for the better part of five minutes, trying to find the courage to do what he had prepared himself to do. He had working toward this goal for the whole week. He had been thinking about it for longer. And as he stood there, he was recalling the events that had occurred over the last three months. Many things had happened, and most of them ached.

_The biggest one was the first one. It had still nearly killed him with sorrow. The memory of the night that Naru came back was fresh in his mind. He hadn't gotten the chance to talk to Motoko that he hoped to have. He hadn't been able to track her down to any one spot that whole day. She wasn't at meals. And he now knew that she had been trying to make it more difficult for him. Something made her mad, and yet, also lit an ember of hope within her. He hadn't been sure what it was until a few days ago, and by then, he could scarcely fix it. But he had been trying to find her alone to tell her he was sorry that they were married in those circumstances, and that he'd do everything he could to make sure that she'd be let back into her clan, no matter what, and that once it was done and she was back in her clan, he'd let her divorce him and they'd go about their lives as friends. He wanted her to know that he would support her in everything she did until she reached her goals within clan Aoyama and even then, he'd be her friend through all his life._

_But he never got the chance. And not long before dinner, Naru came back. And when Motoko wasn't at dinner and everyone acted strange at the table, except Keitaro, something in her mind sent out a distress signal. She knew something went down, and it wasn't good. Keitaro did something he shouldn't have, she assumed, but she didn't have enough suspicion to warrant an uppercut at dinner. In her defense, after Keitaro admitted his love for her in the hospital that day, she started loosening the leash she had him on bit by bit. But if he did anything perverted, she'd still lay him out. So after dinner, Naru talked to Kitsune, who had been hitting the bottles a bit earlier in the evening than was usual, assuming she stayed sober for the day. It seemed that the moment the fox left the dinner table, she was swallowing down the amber drink. Which, for Kitsune was not out of the ordinary, but she seemed to be doing it harder than she was when she was just having a drink. To Naru, it seemed the fox was trying to drink away something. And Naru wanted to know what._

"_Hey, Kitsune, do you think Keitaro was acting funny at dinner?"_

"_Not really out of his normal state of behavior, I guess. Why?"_

"_Well, it seemed unusual that he was acting, well, better behaved. And everyone else seemed to be looking, well, kinda like they went to a funeral. And then, nobody waited for Motoko… Tell me, what's going on?"_

_The fox took another long drag off the bottle before she said anything. It seemed that she was thinking. Conspiring, more like it. But, she took a deliberate pause before she said anything. And Kitsune, it seemed would be willing to wait forever, rather than say anything. But the look on Naru's face was heading south. The fox couldn't drag it on forever. She'd seen what Naru could do when she was mad, and Mitsune had seen the plumes of smoke coming out of Naru's ears, the wheels of anger just starting up._

"_Talk to Motoko. Better yet, talk to Keitaro. I think you'd rather hear from him."_

"_Did that pervert touch someone?"_

"_No. Just talk to him. You'd want to hear it from him."_

_Naru had stopped to her bedroom and yanked up the broken plank of flooring she covered the hole in her floor with, and less than a second later, she fell on top of the married man. The resulting beating was not fully fledged like when he fell onto her, but it was brutal all the same. _

"_What did you do, you pervert?" Naru had demanded of him, and for the first time she came to beat on him, he didn't know what for._

"_What do you mean, Naru?"_

"_What did you do? Motoko wasn't at dinner, and everyone else was looking at you strange. You did something."_

"_I didn't do anything. As for Motoko, I haven't seen her since the wedding."_

"_WHAT WEDDING?" Her fury had met whatever bounds it used to be contained within, and now crushed them. _

"_Oh, mine."_

"_You better get talking, and now, or you're dead!"_

"_Well, Tsuruko, Motoko's older sister came here and was gonna take her back to Kyoto and Motoko didn't want to go. She said she wasn't ready and the appointed time hadn't come yet. But she didn't listen and started dragging Motoko away. So she told Tsuruko that we were engaged. And then she made us take a bath together and it was in the baths that she found out it was a lie and told Motoko she was banished from the clan until she got married and Tsuruko asked me if I would marry her, and I said yes because Motoko was depressed and I thought that if she got married, everything would be fixed. But I haven't seen her since the wedding last night."_

"_You are dead to me, Urashima Keitaro. You are a creep! Die!"_

_And she clobbered him with an undisciplined right hook to the jaw and an uppercut to the chest. Needless to say, Keitaro woke up in his room on his floor with a nasty headache. Kitsune was shaking her head at him after she gave him back his glasses and she fled shortly after doing so._

That was almost the worst thing to happen to him in the course of the three months, the other coming only a little while after that. He was nursing his newest wounds and he realized that Naru had belted him, but she was nowhere to be found. Normally he could hear her fuming, but the place sounded hollow without her ranting. It was then that he decided it would be a good time to try to talk to Naru and see what set her off. So it was heart-breaking for him when, after he tried to knock on her door and she didn't reply and he went in, and found all of her things out of the room. The only things left in it were the furniture supplied to every room of the dorm. The room was immaculately clean, which was understandable for Naru, as she never let anyone see it messy, and the kotatsu was placed near the room's desk, and the changing screen was folded up in the corner. The only evidence that someone had lived there was a small note for the fox of Hinata-Sou. He was confused. It was only when Kitsune read the note and relayed the message she was asked to give that Keitaro realized Naru had left. Mitsune mentioned that his heart's desire had living arrangements closer to Todai and when that sunk in, he broke down and cried. She left without giving him a chance to defend himself. He didn't even know what it was that he did that made her so angry as to leave, and it seemed she was gone before anyone found out that Keitaro got pounded again. The note and Kitsune's reaction to it made it clear that Naru was too mad to talk to her friend before she left.

So, Keitaro cried. He ached emotionally more than he ever ached from his bashings. And it made things worse that Shinobu heard the siren song and came from wherever she had been to check up on the noise. She was devastated that Naru left too, it seemed, and she broke down as well. But a short while later Koalla had the decency to cart the bluenette off to some game or other cheerful activity and left the manager with his sorrow. He didn't want anyone to see him like that, and he felt the need for a tall stiff drink after a while, and wondered if the fox drank out of sorrow. He dismissed that thought quickly because she never seemed to be upset for any reason, but it still occurred to him that Kitsune was Naru's best friend and she has to be upset too. So as his tears subsided, he checked on the fox and found her little better state than he was himself. She had four bottles of sake opened and mostly empty and he could see the trails tears had made on her face too.

The two shared drinks and a hug much like the one shared between a man and his sister-in-law at the funeral of his wife. It was the late afternoon the day after Naru left when they had finally talked, but she refused to tell him why she thought her friend left in such a fury. He was a rock she could cling to most of the time, and though he was devastated, he was more together and stable than she was herself. That, and she figured that Keitaro would have to find out on his own. It would do him a great deal of good to do so anyway.

Thinking about the past three months actually brought back the ache of Naru's departure again, and no matter how much the fox's companionship helped and how much he liked that he was getting to know her better, the circumstances were wrong. And even the fox felt it. Her wiles of him eased a bit, and she made some effort to do more columns for the paper she worked for, but he found out on his own what set Naru off and the pain of it was something Kitsune's company couldn't heal. It did help him that Kitsune gave him hints as to what was going on between him and his wife, but that he also figured out mostly on his own.

She made the mistake of taking one of her free days off at the Sou and unfortunately, Keitaro was unoccupied with restoring the dorm and most of his chores were finished. When she was walking around practicing some of the English she expected to be on the next Todai entrance exam, he heard her well enough to go investigate and saw her for the first time in nearly two months. When she saw him, she was caught in his headlights momentarily and sprinted off out of the dorm. He could only reason she didn't want to be around him either, because he noticed it more and more that she wasn't around when he was in a room. That smacked him painfully too, but the months after Naru's vanishing act had dulled his nerves a bit.

So, after nearly a week of wondering what would make Motoko want to avoid him and not coming up with any answers, he found himself calling a number he couldn't remember getting, but the voice on the other end of the line was rest assuredly the person he sought to talk to.

"Manager-san. How are you two newlyweds doing?"

"Not well, Tsuruko-san."

"Oh. Why is that, Keitaro-san?"

"Motoko's been avoiding me."

"Is that all? You sound too upset for that to be the only thing on your mind."

"Well, no… Naru left a while ago and I found out that she was mad that I got married to Motoko. And now I find out that Motoko's avoiding me on purpose. Everyone I care is ditching me."

"I see. But you did not expect that Naru would be upset?"

"I guess I understand if she was upset, but she didn't give me a chance to explain. She knocked me out, and when I woke up, she was gone. Her room was emptied out."

"I'm terribly sorry, Keitaro-san. That's quite unfair of her to do that to you. But you are married to Motoko-chan. At some point, things would fall apart, and drawing it out unnecessarily would only hurt everyone involved more."

"I guess. But still, even Motoko's avoiding me. It's like everyone around me thinks I have the plague or something. And I think she's avoiding me because she's mad at me too. I thought she would be happy if I offered to marry her."

"How do you know she is avoiding you, Keitaro-san?"

"Well, I saw her twice or three times and when she saw me, she turned and went the other way. And once, I think we were all about to sit down for dinner and she was walking in, but she musta walked away when she saw me again. When I got up to look for her to talk to her, she was gone. I had no idea where she coulda gone."

"Hm. That sounds new. She never did have a problem confronting someone that angered her. Well, no matter. So, tell me Keitaro-san, how much would you like to sit and talk with your wife?"

"I'd do anything to be able to have someone to talk to again."

"Ok then. Here is what you have to do…"

And so Keitaro found himself looking at Motoko's door at one minute to five still unsure of whether waking her up would be a good idea. But he did tell Tsuruko he'd do anything to see her. And he promised her to try.

The rapping on the door was nearly inaudible at first, but after two tries and almost going back to his room, he felt the promise to try weigh upon him and he told himself that he hadn't really followed through with the spirit of the promise. Soon he had knocked loud enough to warrant Motoko's arousing from her slumber.

"Kitsune? Is that you? What do you need? It's five am."

And Keitaro took that as a cue to open Motoko's door. He took four steps in across the threshold and slid the door shut again. The hallway wasn't lit, and there was the very beginnings of daybreak coming through Motoko's open windows.

"Urashima. What do you think you are doing in my room? Do you have a death wish?"

"I want to talk with you."

That was enough to infuriate Motoko enough to try Naru's technique. The right hook connected with his jaw, but where Naru had been an undisciplined rage monger, Motoko had finesse. Keitaro felt the blow, but where Naru was completely furious, Motoko wasn't awake enough to find her ire.

And yet, he just sat at the side of her futon, wincing from the pain of the attack. He made no attempt to apologize. He just sat there, with the look of a condemned martyr, defiant in his knowledge he was not in the wrong. It shook Motoko that Keitaro wasn't babbling apologies. She felt worried for the first time in months, and it scared her that Keitaro was the one that made her worried. He never held the power to frighten her before, but her core was mortified that he found that power.

"Are you done hitting me," he asked with a touch of steel in his voice, and she found herself done attacking out of fear.

"What did you want? You woke me up, you know?"

He could have been amused if he hadn't been hit when he came to talk to her. This whole week after he talked to Tsuruko, he had started keeping watch on Motoko's habits and found that she had started waking up precisely at 5.

"Tsuruko told me to tell you that you are married to me, and that means that we have to act like it."

"When did you talk to my sister?"

"A few days ago. I called her to ask her for help because you were avoiding me."

"We may be married, Urashima, but I will not be forced to put on a charade of being in a perfect marriage."

"I didn't think you would, and that's not what I want either. But if we have to be married, it would be nice to at least be able to sit in the same room as you and talk with you. I mean, Naru left, and I ached all over. It would have been nice if we could have gotten through it together."

"So what do you want?"

"Well, I'd like to be able to try to get to know you and be friends. I don't want you to hate me just because we're married."

"So, you want to be friends?"

"Well, yeah. You know, hang out together, go to dinner together… Stuff like that."

"Hmph."

"What?"

"You want to date. I will not date you."

"Well, not at first anyway. I'd like to get to know you first. And keep in mind, this is my marriage too. You might not like it, but I put a lot of things on hold to give you a chance to be happy. You could at least try to give me a chance to be your friend, and if it happens that you and I ever get there, maybe we could date."

"Sister said that, didn't she?"

"Well, not exactly," he deadpanned.

Motoko frowned noticeably, but she remembered the steel he had in his voice earlier and decided not to hit him again, if only for her own well-being.

"Tell me, how do you expect this to work?"

"Well, you know, we just start to do things each other likes and see if we can like the same things and talk about things that interest us, and maybe we can think of some things we both wanna do."

"That sounds… safe."

And it was. After the two genuinely were awake, Shinobu had breakfast prepared, and they spoke again. They spoke about what one another had been doing during their separation, leading Motoko to explain that she had picked up a few jobs here and there to pay for cram school to get into Todai. When he asked her what the job was, she stiffened a bit and acted as though she hadn't heard him; she wouldn't live down telling him that she was a lifeguard and swimming instructor at a pool close to her cram school. She didn't want him to imagine her in a swimsuit, but honestly, he'd seen her in her birthday suit so it wasn't too difficult to needle it out of her. He himself had thrown himself into repairs to the dorm that weren't necessary, but would prevent the place from needing it in the near future, and he split the rest of his time as an on-call handyman and studying for the classes he still hadn't taken.

It was after that he realized that Motoko, who never was one to want to be in a bathing unless at the beach, only got the job she had because she was paying for cram school. He also realized that if he were to cancel her rent, that'd be one less bill she had, although in all fairness, she was paying for that herself now that she was married. Her clan had spent their last yen on her living expenses after all. It also occurred to him that Kitsune's back rent that he never really tried to collect for all the times she tried to swindle out of him might really lighten Motoko's financial burdens. But before he voiced this idea, he was curious why Motoko would take a job as a lifeguard. It just didn't seem like her style.

"It was the only job that was looking for someone that I could do. All the martial arts schools in the area had enough instructors as it was, it seems. And since then, I have grown to appreciate it. Swimming is an art much like the kendo I practiced, and it is physically and mentally stimulating. I have been able to teach a number of young children to swim, and that is rewarding."

"Well, that's good. But I think that I have a solution to some of your financial concerns. Kitsune officially owes the Hinata Sou about 1 million yen for 7 months of rent. If you can get it out of her, you're welcome to it. And since we are married and your family has cut you off, and the Sou is making a profit, I think it makes sense if we agree that you don't have to pay rent. What do you think?"

"I AM NOT looking for a hand-out Keitaro. I am offended that you would think of me in such a way."

"Hey, I wasn't insinuating that you are. I just thought that it wouldn't hurt you to have some money so you don't have to work so much while you are going to cram school. I went to cram school for three years and I needed every minute I could get to study to get in."

"Are you saying that I am an idiot; that I couldn't get into Todai without spending all my time studying?"

"Ugh… No, I just thought that you might enjoy not having to spend all your time between school and working. I thought that you might want to have some time for yourself. That's all. And maybe we could spend some time together, you know, to get to know each other better."

"I had not considered that possibility," even though Motoko really had thought he was being his genuinely kind self, she wanted to give him hell to see if he still wanted to make things work. "I shall have to consider this offer. I appreciate the gesture, but like I said, I am not looking for a hand-out. Now, was there something you wanted to do together, or may we talk later?"

"Uh, well, I did wanna see if you wanted to see a movie with me, or something? I heard some good reviews of 'The Last Samurai.' Would you like to see it?"

She snorted derisively to his idea, trying to sound completely disgusted with his image of her. "I am more than simply a martial artist, Keitaro. It scathes me that you would think of me as so one-tracked." She had, in fact liked the film a fair bit, and though it was true that on occasion she would secretly watch romantic comedies and romance films, calling herself multifaceted when it came to film preference was a bit of a long-shot.

"Oh, well, that was all I had in the way of ideas, actually. Sorry. Well, uh, I guess I'll see you later then…"

"Wait. You cannot make an offer like that and rescind it like that. I will go to see the film with you if want to so much. However, I must change. I will be ready in a few minutes. Please wait in the living room."

Keitaro had to agree that Motoko going to a movie in her pajamas would not be the best of choices for attire, but he did appreciate the vision of beauty she was while in them. It caused him a to daydream about her removing her pajamas, and wondered whether she had been wearing a bra under them because her breasts didn't seem like they were wrapped up in her wraps. This led him to further wonder where she wore panties under her pajama pants and envisioned her removing her pajamas, only to find her nude and found the image very stimulating.

She roused him from his visions when she cleared her throat and closed her door in his face.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer still in effect.

The first movie was a great day out. Motoko was not able to hide her pleasure in the movie. She had read the book and while the film bastardized it just like any book is bastardized by a film with the same name, it was a decent action film, and it didn't completely trash her family's honor and traditions. And better yet, she hadn't had to watch it alone. She was with her husband. And greater than that, she didn't have to ask him to go; he suggested it.

Lunch after the movie was pleasant as well. The duo found a quaint restaurant that served a grilled chicken over her favored garden salad. He even ordered the same, and found it agreeable, further validating him to herself. As expected of him, he paid the bill, but he did not make a show of the pleasant tip he left for their server who was kind enough to be scarce when it was convenient for the couple to discuss life.

When their mid-afternoon lunch was finished, they walked and talked some more, aimlessy heading toward Motoko's cram school. When she realized that they had gotten so close to her place of employment, she made an effort not to bring up their locale and hopefully have him forget that she worked in this area in a swimsuit. Her luck was not with her that day it would seem, however, as the senior instructor to the place noticed her face and called her in from the street as they passed the establishment.

Keitaro was not quite quick enough to realize that Motoko wanted to spend the time with him rather than with her boss, and much more in her clothes than in a swimsuit, and he found himself bringing his wife to greet the woman that greeted her. The senior instructor, a woman about 23 years of age with the name Aiumi embroidered into the fabric of her single piece swimsuit, greeted her employee with the pleasantness of a sunny day in spite of the younger woman's dismal countenance. When introduced to Keitaro she didn't quite keep to herself some of the attitude that Motoko expressed to her about her husband when she gave the man the backhanded compliment she gave him. She also didn't take the hint Motoko was giving her that she didn't want to show her husband in her work attire.

No, Motoko was coerced by her boss's cheery outlook and her own self-defeated attitude to put on the rather skimpy bikini she was provided by the employer. She took more than the necessary time to change into the swimsuit due to her embarrassment and was more than once told to not keep her husband waiting to see her in the ridiculous garments, and after nearly 5 minutes, Motoko was standing next to the pool in a swimsuit that felt more like lingerie than a legitimate set of clothing, wearing a deep shade of crimson on her face, neck and chest. He was stunned with the display as for the first time ever, he had seen her not naked and still nearly, and the effect was astounding. The redness in her face and the normal alabaster of her flawless skin almost perfectly matched the bikini's colors and she soon felt the need to run back to the changing room to hide for the rest of her life.

He stopped her a few seconds before she hurried back, and hugged her, telling her that she is gorgeous, even though she thinks that it looks terrible on her, or that she looks terrible in it. She pulled back from her after a few moments and this time took a bit more time to get back to the changing room and heard that the suit was hers to keep as a gift for all the long hours she put in with the young children, and decided to wear it under her clothes instead of changing back into her bra and panties as well; after all, it is comfortable and it's not like anyone will see it anyway under my clothes. And it did truly feel good that he liked the way she looked in it, even if he didn't know she'd wear them back. It occurred to her only as she was leaving the changing room that he could see her panties and bra in her hands, and that he could see them in her hands, but she already was blushing heavily from just wearing the damnable thing and shoved the undergarments into his pocket. Thanking the woman for the gift, Motoko tried to make her exit, but her boss stopped her this time.

"I hear from your husband that you might be coming into a fairly large sum of money. Will you be staying on with us?"

Not knowing what to say, she said that she plans to stay for the rest of the season and see how things work as time progresses. That was sufficient to get the duo out of the pool hall and back onto the busy street they were taking back to the Sou. Conversation between them was limited to their short-term plans, including the next possible outing or date. The tram they took was rather empty, but Motoko sat by her husband because she seemed to forget her promise to herself to be stern with him and make him earn his love. By the time they got back to the Sou, Haruka had been locking up her shop and popped in for dinner, and because it spiked her curiosity that Motoko and Keitaro were coming back so late and both seemed to be in good spirits. Dinner was no different from normal, if you counted Naru's absence as normality. People talked and Kitsune teased and probed and her targets this time were the married couple, who for the first time in a while, were seen in the same room together. Kitsune needled them with questions of where they went and suggestions that they were getting cozier than they had in fact been. Keitaro did his best to defend Motoko's honor, but she was too concerned with the redness on her face to make his attempt meaningful.

After dinner, Keitaro made an attempt to go give Motoko back her undergarments and this time he knocked. He knew that she'd be getting ready to take a bath and while the wonderful image of her naked did wonders for his arousal, he was genuinely interested in her personality and spending time with her for the time being. If things went well for the next few months, he could consider that, but now was the appropriate time to act like a gentleman. And he was rewarded for doing so. The swimsuit that she had been given was still adorning her fair skin and she had stepped out of her hakama and gi when she answered the door. His face wasn't far from drooling, but he did manage not to. The light from her room bathed her in a pleasant glow from the hallway that made her seem like an angel taking time off for a swimsuit contest. She blushed and cleared her throat a moment after she realized she had let him stare at her like this and he was roused from his thoughts.

"Um, may I come in?"

"Yes, you may enter."

The door behind them closed gently and she stepped a few steps back. With the space he was granted, he found himself better able to think why he was there and grabbed the bra and panties from his pocket and stretched out his hand.

"I uh, I thought you'd rather me give these back to you in private. I didn't think you'd want Kitsune seeing me give them back."

"For once you used that brain of yours that got you into Todai. Thank you for the consideration. Was there anything else, or may I go get my bath now?"

"Um, well, I wanted to say that I had a great time spending time with you. It was nice. I'd like to do it again sometime."

"I enjoyed myself as well. I had not expected to have such fun with you, nor did I believe the film would be as engaging as it was. I would like to do something similar soon as well. But may I get my bath now, or did you have something else to say?"

"Um. Actually, yeah. For one, I think that that looks great on you. Err… You look great in it. I, I, I mean, um. Nevermind."

"What is it you mean, Urashima?"

"I guess, um, that you don't have to feel embarrassed about wearing that. You look great in it, or out. Err… That came out wrong. I don't stare at you when you're naked! Please don't hit me!" His arms covered his face in record time, but it didn't hurt that he knew that what he said was liable to get him belted. When he didn't get a hit in the face or thrown violently from the room with a burst of ki, he lowered his defenses. She was looking at him, almost as though she was boring into him with her eyes.

"What do you mean, Urashima," she repeated with a tone that carried a bit of acid.

"I mean that, I've seen you a lot, and sometimes I see you accidently naked, and other times, I see you in your gi and hakama, and when we went to the summer tea shop, you wore that school suit. You're gorgeous. You don't have to hide how you look under all the clothes you wear. I'm not telling you not to wear it all, but I don't want you to feel uncomfortable wearing clothes that show off how good you look."

Smack. It was more the shock that she slapped him than the force of the slap that surprised him.

"That was for lying. You cannot expect me to believe you did not stare at me in the baths all the times you found yourself in the springs when I was in there. You always got a nosebleed from being in there and you are not prone to them otherwise."

Kiss. The kiss to his cheek also stunned him, but it did keep him quiet while she spoke again.

"That was a thank you for the compliment. Now, may I please get my bath? I am tired and today has been a long day."

"Well, I was hoping I could get you to show the other girls the swimsuit and have them give you their thoughts. I think they'd all agree that you look good in it."

Motoko made a point to look as though she was considering it heavily. In reality, she liked the idea, because Naru was not going to tell her she should change, and Kitsune would likely be stunned. The younger girls would shower her with praise, and she'd be able to tell them all about the job she had been doing, and even the watermelon girl would probably give her a compliment, and today had been too good a day not to get the compliments on her looks now.

"I suppose I could, just this once. But do not expect that I will wear this _thing _whenever I am swimming. It is so improper to show one's body so much."

The fashion show and tell event went just as she expected. Unfortunately, it quickly became a contest for Kitsune who found it appropriate to change into her own bikini and the busty Okinawan found herself in her own swimsuit not long after. Moments later Suu announced that she needed a bath and that they should take the show to the springs, where Kitsune got grabby and wanted to compare herself with the kendo woman and the watermelon woman. For Keitaro, he had enough sense to be in his bath when his wife and the other girls went to the springs, and because of Suu's horseplay, he was done long before the girls.

Standing outside Motoko's door again, he waited a short while before she arrived. They talked a moment before he was politely told she had to change and he found himself staring at her door again for a few minutes. Her door open again, he said again how much he enjoyed the day he spent with her and was wishing her a good night, trying not to focus on her pajamas. He was walking away when he realized that if he ever had a chance to get a first date kiss, it was right then and stopped himself in motion. She had hoped internally to get one, but when he started walking away, she was sure there was not going to be one. She was somewhat stunned when she found herself being kissed and for a second, she didn't respond. Then her brain caught up to her and her hand was at his cheek and then it was over. It wasn't the kiss she had expected when they were married, but it was the right kind of kiss for the situation; the kind you get that sends fuzzy feelings throughout you and makes you realize that you are getting a second date.

Both of them in very short order found themselves red as a ripe cherry and Motoko's door was shut very swiftly, but not angrily. Keitaro hadn't noticed because he was high-tailing it to his own room where he could consider the kiss. Neither slept very restfully that night as they pondered what the kiss meant.

The following morning didn't seem any more unusual than the dinner from the night before, although being a Monday, the school-bound girls were finding themselves off to their trams at about the time that Keitaro was stirring from his bed. The day was par for the course at the Sou, and things calmed back down again over the next few days. It was about three weeks later that Motoko and Keitaro had their next date, and it was again an outing meant to please Motoko; a museum of Feudal Japanese history in Tokyo. Though Motoko knew nearly all of the knowledge that a casual museum-goer would have learned that day, she enjoyed it because she was able to impress Keitaro with the things that they were lacking and incorrect about. She did, however, learn that the Aoyama clan of old had been joined once with the precursor to the Urashima clan, and that it ended by a royal decree from the Emperor himself when the dispute between the two clans over the Aoyama man's infidelity to his Urashima wife became a bloodsport. She learned that the only reason the Emperor stepped in was that the two clans were his greatest supporters during a particularly trying time in his efforts to crush the daimyo that was causing him a lot of trouble.

The date, and the next handful were much like the first, and they were needled by Kitsune less and less as they got closer and closer, but over the three months that followed, it nearly fell off completely. Until they officially called each other boy and girlfriend to their friends at the Sou.


End file.
